IP Law

AddyHart serves innovative companies by helping them to protect and monetize their intellectual property. Led by co-founders Meredith Addy and Robert Hart, our team of attorneys is deeply versed in business, technology, and the sciences as well as in intellectual property law. We serve clients across industry, focusing in particular on entrepreneurial small to mid-sized companies and entrepreneurs.

The legal climate for innovators has become more difficult in recent years, in particular due to legislation such as the 2011 Leahy-Smith America Invents Act (AIA) and Supreme Court decisions affecting in particular innovations in science and technology. Therefore, it has become still more important for your legal team to be armed with both the passion and experience to effectively secure and defend your intellectual property—and to provide strategic advice on how to grow.

Our attorneys boast backgrounds in a wide range of technical areas, including in the chemical sector, petroleum engineering, electrical engineering, aerospace, and software. We have a proven record of success in protecting innovations across a range of technologies, including in avionics, digital communications, and in the automotive, and bioengineering sectors.

Equally importantly, we are passionate about protecting innovators and their inventions. We fight hard for our clients’ interests—and we are successful at it.

AddyHart specializes in handling all aspects of complex IP litigation: from discovery and pre-trial motions practice to claim construction, Markman hearings and summary judgment proceedings through to settlement or, if necessary, trial.

Our attorneys have a wealth of experience as both outside and in-house counsel in multi-million-dollar patent disputes. We represent patent owners, patent challengers, and amici before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, at the USPTO’s Patent Trial and Appeal Board, in the U.S. district courts, at the Court of Federal Claims, and before the Supreme Court of the United States.

Practice chair Meredith Addy—former chair of the national patent litigation practice at an AmLaw100 firm, and former chair of the national appellate practice at one of the nation’s largest IP law firms—has led more than 30 federal district court cases and more than 40 appeals to the Federal Circuit.

We help clients effectively build and manage their IP portfolios, drafting patents and providing portfolio management and monetization strategies related to patent prosecution, opinion letters with respect to validity and/or infringement issues, freedom-to-operate matters, and conflict avoidance.

Our team is experienced in assisting clients with strategic decisions related to protecting and monetizing corporate intellectual property portfolios. In particular, Addy and Hart collaborated—he as Chief IP counsel and she as outside counsel—on patent portfolio strategies for one of the world’s largest Tier 1 specialty automotive electronics companies, prioritizing key patents in a 5,000+ patent portfolio.