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U.S. Practice

There are many advantages to securing intellectual property rights in the United States. NLO’s in-house team of U.S. patent attorneys and agents are authorized to act before the United States Patent & Trademark Office (USPTO), and help ensure your patent applications and portfolio are drafted and prosecuted to maximize protection in the U.S. market.

U.S. specialists

Our team of experts can handle all aspects of U.S. patent law and practice, offering tailored services that identify the most effective patent strategies for individual clients. They have broad experience in many different technology areas, and we even have a former U.S. patent examiner as part of the team. Our U.S. experts not only stay up-to-date with the current laws and changes, they keep you informed of all the important changes essential to your portfolio and your business via blogs and client informational sessions.

Our U.S. specialists are based out of our NLO offices in The Hague, which means they are able to work more closely with our European clients, tailoring an approach with a full picture of the overall goals.

Our U.S. team can help you with:

  • U.S. strategy 
  • Application drafting
  • Application filing
  • U.S. prosecution
  • Infringement advice and opinions
  • Invalidity advice and opinions
  • Litigation strategy and support
US Patents
Keeping a sharp eye on clients’ commercial needs, NLO secures ironclad patent protection both at home and far beyond.
IAM Patent 1000, 2020 -

U.S. patent applications

Our U.S. patent attorneys can work closely with your company to help you work through the following US specific strategies:

Is your invention patentable in the U.S. (even if not in Europe)?
There are a number of categories of inventions (business methods, software, surgical methods) which are not patentable in Europe but which can be patentable in the U.S. Additionally, even publicly disclosed subject matter can be the subject matter of a US application (if filed within one year).

What is the best filing strategy?
Sometimes it is a requirement to first file your application in the U.S. (if invented there), and sometimes it is simply beneficial to jump-start the patenting process there. Our U.S. attorneys can help you to determine what is the best initial filing strategy for your specific situation, as well as advise on strategies to speed up the patenting process when building a portfolio quickly is desirable.

How can I best build and maintain my U.S. portfolio and protection?
The U.S. patent system has a number of different considerations which can lead to different strategies to ensure the right U.S. protection for your inventions. These include divisional and continuation applications, continuation-in-part applications, varied claim sets in a single application, design patents and more.

How can I best protect my products and my company?
As in Europe, it is important to monitor your protected products and enforce your own patents in the U.S. Particularly with the threat of triple damages in the U.S. for willful infringement, it is also important to be vigilant of competitor’s rights in the area. Our U.S. team can help you with both, from ensuring that everything is in place to obtain maximum damages possible if needing to enforce your patents to doing a freedom to operate search before a key product is about to launch to devising non-infringement or invalidity positions to avoid triple damages against a threatening competitor’s patent.

Do you have any questions?

Would you like more information about US patents or our services? Please contact one of our US patents attorneys or request a brochure here below.