Intellectual Property

From burgeoning high-tech companies to large international manufacturers, clients regularly turn to Greene Espel to represent them in major disputes involving trade secrets, patents, trademarks, and copyrights.

We take pride in working with in-house and outside experts to master complicated technical subjects and in presenting those concepts to judges and juries in an understandable way.  Our lawyers have litigated, tried, and handled on appeal IP cases in Minnesota and across the United States, often with tens or hundreds of millions of dollars at risk.

We have deep experience handling IP disputes in district courts and circuit courts of appeal around the country, the International Trade Commission, and the Patent Trial and Appeal Board.

Experience 

Our lawyers have handled several IP disputes including:

Trade Secrets

• On behalf of a Fortune 100 company, protected and enforced filter-technology trade secrets against a competitor that had worked for our client as a contract manufacturer
• Helped a national lending institution protect trade secrets associated with its lending and compliance practices after our investigation showed that a former employee had stolen trade secrets and brought them to a competitor
• Obtained an early dismissal of a fabric-treatment-technology inventor in a trade-secrets action brought by a competitor
• Obtained favorable resolution of trade-secrets case for our client, a wheel manufacturer, following court’s denial of our opponent’s summary-judgment motion

Patents

• Pursued infringement litigation, tried cases, and obtained favorable results on behalf of numerous clients as plaintiffs and defendants in cases involving patented technology relating to software, databases, computer equipment, industrial equipment, color transfer, electrical circuits, and mechanical operations
• Obtained a favorable claim construction that led to summary judgment of infringement on behalf of our client, the inventor and practitioner of an innovative business method in the field of check processing
• Obtained a favorable claim construction that led to summary judgment of non-infringement for our client, a household-name national insurance company
• Obtained dismissal of all patent claims against our client, an international medical device manufacturer, in a multi-party patent infringement suit
• Regularly represent a Fortune 100 company in disputes with patent licensees
• Represented manufacturers of products as diverse as perfume and printer ribbons in actions against the distributors of inexpensive and infringing knock-offs

Trademarks

• Brought and resolved a trademark claim involving one of the country’s most recognizable brands in the home-security industry
• Resisted a preliminary-injunction motion, and later obtained summary judgment, on trademark claims against an international animal-feed producer
• Obtained summary judgment for our client, a Fortune 100 food company, on an $18 million fraud claim relating to trademark rights and preserved the result on appeal in the Eighth Circuit
• Represented an Internet start-up company in a domain-name dispute involving the Anticybersquatting Consumer Protection Act and the Federal Trademark Dilution Act of 1995
• Represented the IP arm of a national professional sports league in protecting its trademarks throughout the United States

Copyrights

• Helped The Kingsmen recover ownership of their musical recordings, including the roll-and-rock classic “Louie Louie.” This suit, which reached the United States Supreme Court, involved both common law copyright and contractual issues
• Represented an architectural design firm in connection with various copyright and trade secret disputes