Intellectual Property

Overview

Transforming an idea into marketplace success requires more than a spark of ingenuity.

Capturing, protecting, and commercializing intellectual property requires a legal services partner well-versed in intellectual property law, who is able to seamlessly integrate IP prosecution and registration, litigation, and transactional capabilities across patent, trademark, copyright, and trade secret matters.

Our interdisciplinary Intellectual Property practice guides clients through the full IP lifecycle—including mining an organization’s research and development activities to strategically capture and protect intellectual property, supporting the commercialization and branding of those assets, enforcing IP rights, and defending against competitors.

This continuum of services ensures an open exchange of industry insights between teams while never compromising client confidentiality—aligning your counsel’s command of ever-evolving laws and regulations with the latest trends in business, culture, innovation, and policy.

Serving as an extension of your team, we offer premier legal experience, including attorneys who have previously worked within the US Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO), scientific and engineering knowledge discovered in the field, and a wide range of industry insights learned in the boardroom to help our clients gain a competitive advantage and minimize risk.

Recognition

• ChIPs – Named to the 2024 Honor Roll for the firm’s commitment to diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) in the workplace, and recognized for “Excellence in gender Inclusion”
• Nixon Peabody has been named a Tier 1 National firm for Litigation - Intellectual Property; Patent Law; and Trademark Law in the 2025 edition of Best Law Firms®.
• 9 attorneys selected for inclusion in The Best Lawyers in America® 2024, in the fields of Copyright Law; Litigation - Intellectual Property; Litigation - Patent; Patent Law; and Trademark Law
• 7 attorneys selected for inclusion in Best Lawyers: Ones to Watch in America 2024, in the fields of Intellectual Property Law; Litigation - Intellectual Property; Technology Law
• IAM Patent 1000—The World’s Leading Patent Practitioners—Recommended for patent prosecution and litigation, with multiple individual lawyers honored (2012-2024)
• World Trademark Review 1000—Recommended for trademark prosecution and strategy and for trademark litigation and enforcement (2012–2024)
  • California—Bronze: Enforcement and Litigation, Prosecution and Strategy
  • DC Metro Area—Silver: Prosecution and Strategy
  • Massachusetts—Bronze
  • Illinois—Bronze: Prosecution and Strategy
• Managing Intellectual Property—Ranked as a top U.S. law firm for securing “the highest-quality patents”; recognized as a national leader in the patent category; recommended as a top U.S. law firm in Massachusetts for trademarks and patent prosecution; recommended as a top U.S. law firm in Illinois for the patent contentious category; ten IP attorneys recognized as “IP Stars” (2013–2023)
• Recommended in The Legal 500 United States for Trade Secrets (litigation and non-contentious matters) (2013–2024); named as a “Firm to Watch” for Intellectual property – Copyright