Areas of Law
Attorney Sokol works with inventors and businesses to identify and protect their intellectual property rights. He provides counseling, application preparation, litigation and transactional services for patents, trademarks, copyrights and trade secrets. His thorough and cost effective handling of client matters help them achieve their goals.
Attorney Sokol has an engineering mind set and comes from a family of engineers. Prior to his legal career, he worked as a systems engineer in the design and construction of two nuclear power plants. During his 24 years of patent law experience, he has prepared, prosecuted and obtained over a 120 patents issued from U.S. Patent & Trademark Office, and has also obtained corresponding patent protection throughout the world. He has experience in counseling clients in all aspects of patent acquisition and enforcement, including validity, infringement, and enforceability opinions. His education, engineering experience and patent law experience give him special knowledge in a wide variety of technologies including computer controlled systems, robotics, mechanical equipment and tools, mechanized manufacturing, manufacturing processes and other technologies.
Attorney Sokol assist clients with determining the availability of trademarks, service marks and trade dress, and registering those marks with the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office and throughout the world. He has experience in opposition and cancellation proceedings before the Trademark Trial and Appeal Board, and has successfully litigated registered and common law marks and trade dress cases in federal court. He provides these services for a wide variety of fields, including clothing, paper products, sporting goods, computer and electronic products, household and automotive goods, as well as the retail, wholesale and web based marketing of those and other consumer goods and services.
Attorney Sokol has obtained copyright registrations for a wide variety of works, and has represented clients in copyright litigation and licensing. He has secured copyright protection in many areas, including music, books, manuals, architectural drawings, computer programs and toys.
When necessary, Attorney Sokol is an experienced intellectual property trial attorney and has successfully represented clients nationwide in the enforcement and defense of numerous intellectual property disputes, including patent, trademark, trade dress, copyright and trade secret claims. He also has experience in determining whether your insurance should provide coverage regarding intellectual property litigation.
Attorney Sokol has handled trade secret misappropriation and protection disputes, and can assist with confidentiality and non-disclosure agreements for use with product development and manufacturing, joint ventures and consultants.
Attorney Sokol has assisted with due diligence reviews in mergers and acquisitions involving all areas of intellectual property, including identifying overlooked assets and the need for additional assignments of rights.
Attorney Sokol has experienced in drafting and negotiating an array of intellectual property agreements including development, manufacturing, marketing, licensing, assignments, confidentiality and nondisclosure agreements.