About Us

What can Kim, Lahey & Killough do for you?

Our attorneys provide legal services for individuals and companies whose products or services are technical in nature.  We counsel clients in all aspects of intellectual property law to efficiently and strategically leverage intellectual property protections, legal strategies, and legal services to further the goals of your business. Always looking to serve our client’s strategic business goals, we focus on developing client-centric strategies for companies to focus their intellectual property and build strong IP portfolios that maximize value.

When it comes to patents, you don’t need us to describe your invention; you need us to define your invention for the U.S. Patent Office. We know there is often an innovative concept that is bigger than your specific product. We can help you identify the core concept and seek protection and a competitive advantage in the marketplace. Accordingly, we can work with you to evaluate the intellectual property protection potential of inventions and create IP protection strategies to further these potentials, both domestically and internationally.

With decades of experience, Kim, Lahey, and Killough have extensive experience dealing with international and U.S. patent prosecution, trademarks, copyrights, trade secrets, licensing of intellectual property rights, and rendering legal opinions on validity, infringement, novelty, freedom to operate, and enforceability of intellectual property rights, as well as litigation involving patents, trademarks, copyrights and trade secrets. Their experience includes working with clients having household names in a variety of industries such as aerospace, automotive, chemical, fiber, textile, healthcare, manufacturing, sporting equipment, business processes, software, and finance, among others. Large corporations and entrepreneurs turn to us for strategic legal advice in domestic and international markets, as well as IP protection and enforcement.

Additionally, we can also offer legal services that include general contract negotiations, drafting and review for vendors, customers, and others; dispute resolution; advice concerning legal risk management and avoidance; rights enforcement and defense, litigation and other legal needs that businesses are faced with in their day-to-day operations.

We believe our client-centric focus has led to success for us and our clients, and therefore, we will continue this philosophy when working with you.  Our client-centric approach has four main concepts:

1. Understanding your business.

We strive to learn as much as we can about your business. By understanding your IP portfolio and business model, we work to tailor legal solutions that make sense to meet your business goals and traverse challenges in your industry.

2. Experience based strategy.

Our experience in business provides us with the ability to view your legal needs in light of your business goals (e.g. creating an IP portfolio advantageous to expansions in new markets, licensing, and exits). Securing, enforcing and monetizing intellectual property rights to achieve your business goals is an important step in a company’s growth. We offer the experience to help strategically guide our clients to manage the legal risks involved.

3. Inventiveness.

We help clients recognize and capitalize on intellectual property they may not even know they had in their business. Our experience helps us identify missed opportunities to create assets, enhance IP portfolios, and even reduce unnecessary costs by periodically triaging the IP portfolio both domestically and internationally to realign the IP portfolio with current business goals.

4. Trusted Advisors.

We strive to establish lasting relationships with our clients. Clients come back to us year after year because of the good experience they have with our follow-through, our responsiveness, our passion about their issues, and our principled dedication to advocating for our clients’ objectives. We appreciate the trust our clients have in us and we work hard to maintain it.

What should I do before contacting you about protecting my idea?

If you have any inclination that you may have a patentable invention, intellectual property to protect, or business need, it is best to include an attorney as early in the process as you can. Do not make the mistake of losing your patent rights; talk to us and learn what you will need to do to protect yourself. Whether you choose to work with us to implement your plan or not will be completely up to you. Any consultation is strictly confidential.

Can I patent my invention?

One of the first questions from an inventor, and one which requires a bit of a summary. For those that are interested in greater detail, we recommend setting up an appointment. The United States Patent and Trademark Office provides a wealth of helpful information to inventors at https://www.uspto.gov/patents-getting-started/general-information-concerning-patents.

At the most basic level, in order for your invention to be patentable, it must be both (1) new and (2) non-obvious. “New” means there is nothing else exactly like it. “Non-obvious” means there must be protectable differences between your invention and any existing products and patents that would not have been obvious to someone skilled in the relevant area of technology at the time you created the invention.

If you believe that the differences in your invention are non-obvious and they would be valuable to protect, you should contact our firm for an appointment to determine the best way to proceed.

Can I write my own patent?

Though it sounds reasonable and may appear to save you some money in the short term, few clients are equipped with the experience to write their own patent applications.

A patent application is a highly structured document which is not intuitive for those without experience drafting patents. Capturing the appropriate scope of protection without relevant experience is very difficult, not to mention the time needed to revise and edit a self-authored application when our attorneys are inevitably included in the process.

We understand your concerns and appreciate your desire to do as much as you can by yourself. Any inventor or entrepreneur got to where they are by being a self-starting powerhouse of innovation. But in order to provide you with lower cost services, including our attorneys early in your process will help us better evaluate your invention and reduce the time needed to edit your self-authored patent application to ensure you have the best chance at gaining the requisite approval.

How much does a patent cost?

Our focus on strong, lasting relationships has also led us to offer alternative billing arrangements for clients seeking to avoid the traditional hourly billing model. We acknowledge that each business operates differently and that our billing arrangements must be flexible enough to serve our clients’ unique needs.

The cost of a patent can vary greatly depending on the type of patent (utility, design, plant), the technology involved, and many other factors.  The simple fact is, however, that drafting a quality patent application takes time.  If you would like a free cost estimate, please contact one of our attorneys.

Can I patent my software?

Of course! It must be a new and useful process, or a new and useful improvement, but software patents are integral to this generation of innovation and growth. Kim & Lahey Law Firm has significant experience in protecting software and computer programs.

Do I need a patent to sell my invention?

No, you don’t.  However, a US-patent will grant 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.  Thus, while you don’t need a patent to make and sell and invention, you do need one to stop others from copying your invention.