Patents

Kirton McConkie represents clients in acquiring, enforcing, and licensing patents in the United States and in foreign countries. Patents are property rights in an invention and are issued to the inventor by a patent office in a particular country. In the United States, the right conferred by a patent grant is the right to exclude others from making, using, offering for sale, or selling the invention in the United States or importing the invention into the United States. 

Patents include a description of the invention and at least one claim defining the invention.  Each patent claim is required to be useful, novel, and non-obvious. In the United States, a utility patent can be acquired on a machine, article of manufacture, composition of matter, or any new and useful improvement in these areas. The United States also grants design patents on the ornamental design of functional items.

Kirton McConkie intellectual lawyers work with inventors and businesses to devise effective strategies for acquiring patents to protect innovation and competitive edge. Once a patent has been granted, the patent owner has the legal authority to exclude others from making, using, or selling the claimed invention in a particular country without consent, for a fixed period of time. Our IP lawyers also assist clients by helping them capitalize on their patent rights by licensing and enforcing the patents.

Our forte is devising tailored strategies for preparing, filing, and prosecuting domestic and foreign utility and design patent applications. We strive to expedite prosecution to reach allowance as quickly as possible while maintaining the broadest reasonable claim scope. We obtain such results by drafting clear applications focused on the key aspects of the client’s inventions and by interacting directly with the examiners to ensure the applications receive a thorough and focused examination.

Our attorneys have established good reputations with many patent examiners through in-person and telephone interviews, thus increasing the examiners’ willingness to work quickly toward allowance.