The Intellectual Property and Technology (IPT) Service Group uses a team approach to provide clients with comprehensive intellectual property services. Our team identifies, protects, acquires, transfers and defends our clients' intellectual property rights. Our attorneys practice throughout the nation and the world in the areas of patents, trademarks, copyrights, trade secrets, licensing, intellectual property rights for construction drawings, computer software property rights, privacy, e-commerce and Internet transactions and IP litigation (including infringement and unfair competition actions).

Sixteen members of the IPT Group are Registered U.S. Patent Attorneys. More than 30 attorneys with the firm, including members of the IPT Group, have technical backgrounds in fields such as engineering, including bioengineering, chemical, civil, electrical, industrial, mechanical and nuclear engineering; life sciences/biotechnology, including biochemistry, cell biology, genetics, immunology, microbiology, molecular biology and pharmacology; and other scientific and technical disciplines such as chemistry, computer science, manufacturing, mining, physics and telecommunications.

The IPT Group handles a wide variety of sophisticated transactions and difficult litigation matters for some of the nation's leading businesses and institutions. For example, our attorneys regularly represent Microsoft Corporation in copyright and trademark infringement litigation related to counterfeit software. They also represent educational institutions, including Vanderbilt University, University of Mississippi, University of Mississippi Medical Center, University of Louisville, University of Kentucky Research Foundation Inc. and David Lipscomb University in their various patent, trademark and technology transfer matters. Design professionals and design / build companies rely on the IPT Group to protect their original designs, plans and concepts.

For more detailed information about our intellectual property practice, click on one of the following:

• Patents

• Trademarks

• Copyrights

• Fiduciary Duty, Trade Secret and Unfair Competition Litigation

• Licensing

• E-Commerce and Internet Transactions

• Litigation

For a closer look at the work of the IPT Group, please take a look at the links below:

• Adams USA, Inc., Cookeville, Tenn.

• E.D. Bullard Company, Inc., Cynthiana, Ky.

• Grindmaster Corporation, Louisville, Ky.

• iLight Technologies, Chicago

• Microsoft Corporation

• New Century Pharmaceuticals, Inc., Huntsville, Ala.

• Tennessee Mat Company, Inc., Nashville

Stites & Harbison has one of the deepest intellectual property benches in the Southeast. In January 2004, the group merged with Larson & Taylor, PLC—a nearly half-century old IP boutique located near our nation's capital and only minutes from the United States Patent and Trademark Office.

Earlier expansion of the Group took place in January 2000 when Stites & Harbison joined with Wheat, Smith & Beres, PLLC—Kentucky's premier intellectual property practice. The Group grew again as a result of the firm's January 2001 combination with Nashville's Farris, Warfield & Kanaday, PLC.