Whether modern attorneys are procuring, enforcing, or monetizing intellectual property rights, access to court-cited analysis and real-life practice experience of leading attorneys can be a game-changer.

When it comes to understanding a client’s rights and protecting intellectual property, having on-hand can help IP attorneys win critical cases—or further to ensure that clients do not violate the intellectual property rights of others.

Intellectual Property Resources for Attorneys

LexisNexis boasts an exhaustive collection of intellectual property resources across the diverse discliplines of copyright, patents, trademarks, trade secrets and the nuances and intersections of these disciplines. The books listed below are excellent starting points and even have sample chapters available for review before purchase.

1 - Intellectual Property Culture: Strategy and Compliance 
With the increasing public awareness of patents, U.S. Congress having enacted patent reform, and the U.S. Supreme Court taking on expanding numbers of patent cases, the pressure on innovation-based organizations to define and improve their intellectual property culture is higher than ever before. The proper management of intellectual property assets is essential to a healthy business, but knowing how to proactively protect IP assets is far from intuitive. IP laws are complicated and require nuanced treatment by the executives in charge of making strategic deals and developing a company's assets.

The latest edition of Intellectual Property Culture: Strategy and Compliance, written by Eric M. Dobrusin, Ronald A. Krasnow, Kristen L. Pursley and Daniel P. Aleksynas, is designed to help attorneys and executives build a business culture in which the development and management of intellectual property is as painless and productive as possible. This Second Edition offers more practice tips, coverage of the America Invents Act (passed in 2011), recent Supreme Court patent cases, and new appendices featuring additional helpful and practical tools.

Read a sample chapter of Intellectual Property Culture: Strategy and Compliance online here or purchase from LexisNexis here.

2 - IP and Technology in Government Contracts: Procurement and Partnering at the Federal and State Level

IP and Technology in Government Contracts: Procurement and Partnering at the Federal and State Level, 2021 Edition, written by James G. McEwen, David S. Bloch, Richard M. Gray, and John T. Lucas provides a comprehensive appraisal of United States federal procurement laws relating to intellectual property, plus a detailed survey of state procurement rules.

It is newly updated to address important changes to contracting practices brought on by recent National Defense Authorization Acts and represents the latest thinking on public-private partnerships and procurement of IP-protected commercial items.

Read a sample chapter of IP and Technology in Government Contracts: Procurement and Partnering at the Federal and State Level online here or purchase from LexisNexis here.

3- Trademarks and Unfair Competition, Tenth Edition

The Tenth Edition of the Trademarks and Unfair Competition Deskbook reflects phenomenal growth in trademark and unfair competition law. Formerly unquestioned principles are being rethought, and foundational changes in policy and doctrinal and constitutional dimensions of this ancient body of law are being implemented. The U.S. Supreme Court and various Appellate Courts have continued to rule on important intellectual property issues. Their decisions are a major feature in this new edition.

Published in 2021, the Deskbook provides practitioners of trademark and unfair competition law an organized guide to the decisions, legislation, treatises, and commentary, a delineation of the principal questions and problems to be expected, and an up-to-date synthesis of the current and developing law. This Tenth Edition explores the continuing tension between the First Amendment and protection of trade identity particularly in right of publicity cases. Chapter 8 is devoted entirely to First Amendment issues. Material is also provided on the Federal Trade Commission, which has been actively battling deceptive advertising and marketing schemes and data breaches, as well as material on other governmental agencies such as the Food and Drug Administration.

The Trademarks and Unfair Competition Deskbook, written by David C. Hilliard, Janet A. Marvel and Joseph N. Welch II, is unique among intellectual property resources in structure, conciseness, and content. In addition to having taught the subject for many years at three top law schools, the authors actively litigate intellectual property cases across the U.S.

Read a sample chapter of the Trademarks and Unfair Competition Deskbook online here or purchase from LexisNexis here.

What is Intellectual Property?

Intellectual property, often referred to as IP, is a category of property that deals with intangible creations of the human mind (i.e. the human intellect). Most often IP rights protect inventions, literary and artistic works, designs, symbols, names and images used in commerce.

Similar to tangible property, intellectual property should be protected.

There are many types and variations of IP, and different countries have varying IP laws, but in general there are four types of best-known IP categories: copyright, patents, trademarks, and trade secrets.

Types of Intellectual Property

Intellectual Property, as defined by the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO), is traditionally comprised of four categories: copyright, patents, trademarks, and trade secrets.

• What is a Copyright: Copyright laws protect original works of authorship as soon as a creator fixes their work in a tangible form of expression. In copyright law, there are a lot of different types of works, including paintings, photographs, illustrations, musical compositions, sound recordings, computer programs, books, poems, blog posts, movies, architectural works, plays, and more.

• What are Patents: A patent is an exclusive right granted for an invention to the inventor. This means that once an invention has been patented, no one else can make, use, or sell it without the inventor’s permission. To get a patent, technical information about the invention must be disclosed to the public in a patent application through the 

• What is a Trademark: A trademark any word, phrase, symbol, design, or a combination of these things that identifies a good or service. It’s how customers recognize a brand as authentic in the marketplace and distinguishes it from competitors. In general, a trademark Identifies the source of goods or services, provides legal protection for the brand, and helps guard against counterfeiting and fraud.

         The word “trademark” can refer to both trademarks and service marks. A trademark is used for goods, while a service mark is used for services.

• What are Trade Secrets: A trade secret is information that has either actual or potential independent economic value by virtue of not being generally known, has value to others who cannot legitimately obtain the information, and is subject to reasonable efforts to maintain its secrecy. 

          All three elements are required; if any element ceases to exist, then the trade secret will also cease to exist. Otherwise there is no limit on the amount of time a trade secret is protected.

Looking for authoritative analysis of IP practice and laws from court-cited resources? Browse our 2022 Intellectual Property Legal Resource catalog.

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