The marketplace of ideas can be a crowded space, filled with competitors constantly looking for a leg up.
And that leg up could represent millions of dollars, long-term exclusivity and perhaps most importantly, the protection of those ideas.
It’s within this marketplace of ideas that the experienced team at Oyen Wiggs Green & Mutala LLP exclusively operates.
Oyen Wiggs is Western Canada's largest independent intellectual property law firm that focuses solely on intellectual property law, where patents, trademarks and copyright laws are the firm’s bread and butter.
“Because all of the lawyers in our firm practice exclusively in intellectual property, we have a great deal of knowledge and experience in intellectual property laws ,” explains Oyen Wiggs’s counsel, Lawrence Chan.
A diverse catalog of expertise
Oyen Wiggs’s vast institutional knowledge allows the firm to offer a robust range of services for multinational enterprises, universities, small and medium-sized enterprises and start-ups in both Canada and the U.S. looking to protect their intellectual property assets.
One of the many Oyen Wiggs advantages is the scope and breadth of its team members: 20-plus lawyers with expertise in engineering, physics, software, electronics, chemistry and biotechnology, among other areas.
“Given our diversity of technical expertise outside of the law, we have the foundation of knowledge required to work effectively with our clients to understand, define and protect their innovations,” Chan says.
In the context of patent work, the Oyen Wiggs team leads clients through what can sometimes seem like a maze of bureaucracy and questions in a process that begins with an initial patent application around a new device, machine or chemical composition, for example.
Chan and his team help clients define and focus their ideas before assisting them in putting together a complete patent application, which could be followed by subsequent examination reports and some back and forth with national and international patent officials.
Providing personalized, practical advice
Put into a real-world scenario, picture a university chemistry department that discovers a new chemical compound. That compound could represent a potential gold mine for a pharmaceutical company down the road. It’s at this juncture that Oyen Wiggs helps the university define and protect its future asset.
Not fully understanding the patent process can lead to disastrous financial and legal complications.
For starters, patents prevent others from copying your work and reduce competition. Patents also give firms a period of exclusivity where no one else can sell or market a similar device or product.
Unintended public disclosure can also be a pitfall – knowing what to say and when to say it is yet another area where the Oyen Wiggs team helps clients during the patent process.
Trademarks, on the other hand, are often associated with names, logos or slogans – a classic example of this would be the Nike swoosh logo seen on shoes and shirts the world over.
Chan and his colleagues begin this process by first helping clients determine if others are using a similar trademark, followed by the trademark application process itself, both in Canada and abroad.
Similar to the patent process, some back and forth with regulatory bodies may come up throughout the application process. However, Oyen Wiggs can assist clients through all questions and correspondence.
“Our lawyers are qualified to practice law in British Columbia and many are registered as patent and trademark agents in both the Canadian Intellectual Property Office and the United States Patent and Trademark Office,” Chan says.
To learn more about Oyen Wiggs, its broad spectrum of expertise, and how to get in touch, visit patentable.com.
