Akin Gump’s intellectual property (IP) practice includes a highly qualified team of IP lawyers who work in conjunction with lawyers from other practices within the firm to deliver a combination of services, both traditional and innovative.  Because Akin Gump represents a wide range of clients worldwide—from Fortune 500 companies, multinational corporations, small businesses, universities, research foundations and government agencies—we use a lawyer-client team approach to our IP representation, which works in concert with the client’s business.  The IP practice is committed to fulfilling client needs by understanding and maximizing the value of their IP assets and in minimizing risk.

Our Team

Akin Gump’s IP lawyers and advisors include many nationally known intellectual property trial lawyers.  Within the IP practice, half of our lawyers earned engineering degrees, while a quarter of our lawyers received degrees in the sciences.  The practice regularly draws on the firm’s extraordinary intellectual capital in critically related areas of the law such as corporate, public law and policy, international trade, energy, government contracts, health care, insurance, financial restructuring and antitrust to provide our clients with unusually comprehensive service and advice.

Recognition

The IP group is proud to have been recognized for its commitment and dedication to its clients, as well as its achievements in a wide variety of practice areas. Following is a list of recent awards and rankings in selected areas:

• The September 2009 IP Law and Business ranked Akin Gump among the top 20 most active firms in patent litigation.
• The November 2008 IP Law and Business surveyed the top 50 most innovative companies (as ranked by BusinessWeek) regarding which law firms helped them protect their patents, copyrights and trademarks. Akin Gump ranked among the top 20 firms for IP litigation.
• The July 2008 issue of IP Law & Business ranked Akin Gump among the top 20 firms according to the number of patent litigation cases filed in the district courts and among the top 15 firms representing defendants in district court filings.
• In its June 2008 survey of ITC Section 337 litigation, IP Law & Business ranked Akin Gump among the most active firms before the ITC.
• The May 2008 Intellectual Property Today list Akin Gump among the top 50 firms out of 329 law firms/individuals in a list of firms ranked according to the number of trademark registrations issued in 2007 (where the firm or individual is listed as the legal representative on the face of the registration).
• The January 2008 issue of The American Lawyer named the litigation practice, including intellectual property litigation, at Akin Gump as one of the top five in the United States. In recognizing the firm among the finalists in its biennial “Litigation Department of the Year” competition, the magazine cited Akin Gump's “impressive list of wins against formidable adversaries,” its “daring and creativity” in winning at trial and its “political savvy” when politics and legal matters intersect.
• Akin Gump was named to The National Law Journal’s Defense Hot List in July 2007, which included law firms “that have done exemplary, cutting-edge defense work during the past 12 months."
• Akin Gump IP lawyer Steven M. Zager was named one of the nation’s top 10 litigators in June 2007 by The National Law Journal for his June 2006 win of $152.7 million in damages for Hexion Specialty Chemicals, Inc. in a trade secrets misappropriations case against its rival, Formosa Plastics Corp. of Taiwan.

Our Practice

The intellectual property practice group focuses on:

• IP litigation
• Strategic IP counseling
• IP licensing and transactions
• International Trade Commission proceedings
• Strategic patent prosecution and portfolio development.

The group also provides other traditional IP services to clients of the firm.