Parks and Associates, P.C. handles a wide variety of patent, copyright and trade mark cases. Here are a variety of clients and their experiences with our firm.

1. We are an energy company and registered our trademarks, after due diligence, in United Kingdom and attempted to register them in the US trademark office, but ran into objections as to confusing similarity with other marks and a rare surname objection. Parks and Associates was easily able to overcome the objections as to our mark being confusingly similar with others, but the examiner continued his objection to our registration as to rare surname. Parks and Associates developed a strategy that avoided an appeal to the Trademark Trial and Appeals Board and eliminated the legal expenses and costs associated with the appeal, yet preserved our trademark registration in the marketplace through Supplemental Registration. Thus, we were able to protect our trademark while building up name recognition and secondary meaning in our trademark, which allows us to move to the Principal Registry.

2. I am a chemical engineer who developed a chemical process for enhancing midrange olefin yields. I filed a patent application myself, but later brought it to Parks and Associates. Michael Parks recommended I file a Continuation In Part (CIP) application which we did, and it resulted in two patents being issued. Parks also recommend filing a Patent Convention Treaty application for prosecution of the inventions with World Intellectual Property Organization in Geneva, Switzerland. This filing would preserve the patent subject matter and preserve our U.S. filing Priority date until filings could be made throughout the world. Parks and Associates then helped me negotiate a sale of the patents to a chemical company in the form of a joint venture/limited partnership. The sale also included funding by the chemical company for development of the process and my employment to oversee its development, whereby I retained a percentage interest in the joint venture/limited partnership based on milestones of performance. The new company formed then used Parks and Associates to file patents in countries throughout the world.

3. We were a couple of guys in the communication business and had a great idea for a software-based phone system and needed to retain the technical skills of a programmer to get started, so we sought counsel from Parks and Associates. They advised that we use a Joint Development Agreement and prepared one to retain a software engineer. This Joint Development Agreement gave the software engineer the possibility of participating in the ownership interest of the company we formed, and at the same time it provided that all copyrights, trademarks, patents, and trade secrets would belong to the company. We proceeded and filed patent and copyright on the developed software for our communication business. We have obtained venture capital funding of our company and have now filed, using Parks and Associates, in several foreign countries throughout the world.

4. I, and the co-inventor, are old oilfield hands who developed a self-cleaning lifting system for stripper wells, which allowed them to be produced economically over a long period of time. Parks and Associates filed the patent application for us, but recommended that we convey it to a single company as the owner of the patent just in case any conflict might develop between myself and the co-inventor. They advised this because if a patent is issued with co-inventors each inventor can make use and sell the invention without regard to the other inventor, which destroys the patent’s exclusivity value. It turns out that a dispute developed between myself and the co-inventor, but we had conveyed it to a Corporation and the dispute was settled in the Corporation not over the patent. Parks and Associates obtained the patent and it was issued in the name of the Corporation, which allowed us to resolve our issues without damaging the patent.

5. I was the owner of a mortgage company, which grew into a well- recognized mortgage company throughout the Southwest, and went to Parks and Associates to see if there was any value in obtaining a trademark. Parks and Associates advised me there was tremendous value in the trademark and logo, but there would be some difficultly to get it registered because the trademark was purely geographically descriptive. Parks and Associates managed to get the trademark and logo registered on the principal trademark registry utilizing secondary meaning to overcome the examiner's objection.  However, we almost waited too long to file, because other mortgage companies across United States, some 23, had begun to pick up our name and use it. Parks and Associates proceeded to contact each of these companies and began filing cease-and-desist letters, followed by lawsuits if necessary to drive out these infringers one by one.  At first, I thought the trademarks and logos were just nice things to have, but after seeing all the copy cats and chasing the infringers off, I realized how valuable they were. This was further brought home to me after going through a market downturn, and the values of our company’s assets were reduced, except for the trademarks and logo. That value was proved when a major New York Stock Exchange company wanted to buy our company's trademark and logo for in excess of eight figures and could care less about the few remaining assets.

6. I am a freelance photographer who worked in France and Europe and was sought out by a Hollywood production company to do their still photography for a major motion picture. We entered into negotiations, came to some preliminary agreements, and started work immediately because of the production schedule of the film company. However, upon completion of the project the film company tried to take possession of my negatives and use them without permission. We came to an impasse, so I retained Parks and Associates to write a demand letter to the Hollywood production company setting out my rights of ownership under copyright law and requesting funds for their use of my negatives to promote their film. Ultimately, the suit was filed and the case was settled with them paying me in excess of a five-digit sum and me retaining all rights to my negatives.

7. We are a company that designs and builds garden art. We were tired of going to garden art shows and having photographs taken of our product designs, only to see them at the next show as Asian copies. We approached the firm of Parks and Associates for help. They advised us that we need to file copyright applications and get copyrights to protect our designs. Further, they advised us that we needed to file for trademark protection both for our company and to protect our designs as trade dress because of our designs’ distinctive looks.  We authorized Parks and Associates to file for copyright registrations on our next production year’s designs and file trademarks for the company. Thereafter, as soon as we found the Asian knockoff copies we notified Parks and Associates and they wrote copyright infringement cease and desist letters, which demanded royalty damages and destruction of the infringing inventory. We were able to receive money damages from the infringers and removal of their inventory from the sale, plus stop the shipment of additional infringing inventory from coming into the U.S. This was all cost-effective and efficient from our perspective.