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Practice Areas 

 

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INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY 

 

  • Generally, intellectual property covers the gamut of human creativity including: literature, the visual arts, music, drama, compilation of information, biotechnology, electronics, mechanics, chemistry, computer programs, product design, plants, trade secrets, and many other related areas.

  • Protection of rights in various types of intellectual property may protection in the area of patent, trademark, copyright, trade secrets, design patents, plant patents, semiconductor mask work protection, misappropriation or publicity rights.

 

  • The Ronald Haggerty Law Firm specializes in the protection of rights through registration in the various areas of intellectual property law and related transactions.

 

  • Patent

    • A potentially patentable subject matter may be defined as any “new and useful process, machine, manufacture, or composition of matter” and may include mechanical, chemical and electrical structures and processes. In addition, in order to be patentable, an invention must meet the requirements of utility, novelty and unobviousness of the prior art.

    • While utility patents are the most common patents, there are also design and plant patents.

    • Obtaining a patent confers the right to exclude others from making, using or selling in the United States the product or process claimed by the patent. Patent owners may seek to prevent others from direct infringement from making, using or selling the invention without authority, or from indirect infringement from selling components of a patented process and combinations thereof or inducing others to infringe.

 

  • Trademark

    • A manufacturer or inventor may select any word, symbol or design and adopt it to identify its goods or services and to distinguish such from the goods or services of others. A trademark can be registered with the United States Patent and Trademark office. In addition to registration of trademarks, federal trademark registration statutes also provides for the registration of service marks, certification marks and collective marks. Ownership of a mark confers the right to exclude others from using any mark that creates a likelihood of confusion as to the origin or sponsorship of goods or services, or to cause mistake or deceive.

  • Copyright

    • When a client has a work of authorship that is of his own creation and is “embodied in a tangible medium of expression”, that work is then protectable under copyright law. The work may be literature, drama, music, or visual art, a sound recording, video, or computer program. Registration of a copyright is optional, but is required prior to suing for infringement. Registration may be obtained by filing an application with the Copyright Office.

 

  • Trade Secrets

Whereby patents, trademarks and copyrights have formalities to be obtained, trade secrets do not.  Client with information such as formulas, programs, devices, processes, or compilation of information such as price or customer lists may have such information protected by trade secrets. Information that are protected as trade secrets typically provide economic value to the owner. Thus the owner of information considered a trade secret must prevent its unauthorized use or disclosure by a person who may acquire it by improper means or thorough a confidential relationship. Trade secrets last for as long as the trade secret’s owner prevents the information from becoming common knowledge.

 

 

 

Transactions 

• Contracts 

o Contracts are documents used to memorialize or document a direct bilateral exchange, arranged by bargaining between individuals or business entities. In the exchange each person or entity gives something to the other and receives in return something from the other. 

 

• Confidentiality and Non-Disclosure Agreements

o When two individuals or businesses, or other entities are considering doing business and need to understand the processes used in each others business for the purpose of evaluating the potential business relationship, non-disclosure agreements (NDA) or a confidentiality agreements (CA) are documents which can restrict one or both parties in their use of the materials provided.

o NDA or CA is a contract between the parties that identifies the confidential material, knowledge, or information that the parties wish to share with one another for certain purposes, but wish to restrict access to or by third parties. The NDA creates a confidential relationship between the parties to protect any type of confidential and proprietary information or trade secrets. As such, an NDA protects nonpublic business information.

• Engineering, Procurement & Construction (EPC) Agreements

 

  • Large infrastructure projects require agreements to support each phase of a project. Project phases may include development, site acquisition, financing, engineering, procurement of equipment and services, and ultimately construction of the project. Projects may be U.S. based or international, which may add to the complexity or risk of the project. EPC agreements are drafted to delineate the risk and responsibilities of the contractor and those of the owner. They also address issues that may arise such as a dispute, injury or delay occurring through no fault of the owner or contractor. Parties may agree that causation of such delays are “an act of God” and otherwise declare it as a “force majeure”. Contractor responsibilities may include design, engineering and construction of the project along with start-up and guarantee that the project will operate as intended. Owner responsibilities usually include payment.

  • Operation and Maintenance (O&M) Agreements

    • Once projects, facilities, or systems of various sorts have been developed, built and put into operation, they then may require services to support their operation and maintenance. Systems may be in an industrial setting or consist of computer systems and supporting hardware and software. Owners may wish to have a third party or an affiliate perform the required operation and maintenance services of its project, facility or system. O&M agreements are similar to EPC agreements in that they are drafted to delineate the responsibilities of the contractor/operator and those of the owner.

  • Long Term Services Agreements

    • For projects which include major equipment with large capital outlays for parts and repair, project owners will often enter Long Term Parts & Services Agreements with the Original Equipment Manufacturer to provide parts, major maintenance, emergency and routine maintenance services for such equipment at a predetermined cost or rate.

  • Licensing and Transfer Agreements

    • At the onset of a project and prior to purchasing or selling a product or services, the parties should have agreements in place which dictate which party owns the tangible work product that will result from work performed either individually or in collaboration between the parties.

    • Licensing and Transfer Agreements allow an owner of the work product or intellectual property to allow another party to have access and use of the work product without losing ownership of the work product/intellectual property.

    • Regardless of a projects size or duration, parties should enter an agreement in advance in the event of a dispute relating to the ownership of the plans and specifications.
  • Owner and Contractor Representations

Prior to drafting and entering into any agreement, there are many considerations to be made from an owner or a contractor’s perspective. For liability or project finance reasons, an owner or contractor may want create and form different business entities to conduct different aspects of the same project. For instance, the entity that constructs a project may 

  • for the project, though both entities are owned by the same parent company.

  • Having served as counsel and attorney to both large multinational corporations and mid to small contractors, the Ronald Haggerty Law firm is uniquely qualified to bring to bear an extensive background and years of practical experience representing both owner’s and contractor’s.  

 

ENGINEERING 

 

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