Intellectual Property Litigation

Intellectual property disputes can threaten the assets that distinguish a business: its technology, brands, creative work, and confidential information. Resolving those disputes requires counsel who can understand the rights at issue, develop the evidence, and pursue a strategy grounded in the client’s commercial priorities.

Perilla Knox & Hildebrandt represents intellectual property owners and businesses accused of infringement, misappropriation, and related misconduct. Our litigation practice handles patent, trademark, copyright, trade secret, unfair competition, and false advertising disputes in federal and state courts and before administrative tribunals.

We combine litigation experience with the perspective of an intellectual property firm. Our work preparing and prosecuting patents, developing trademark portfolios, and counseling businesses on intellectual property protection informs how we enforce and defend those rights when disputes arise.

Understanding the assets. Building the case.

Effective intellectual property litigation begins with understanding what the client needs to protect and what the law allows. A dispute may concern the scope of a patent claim, the similarity of competing brands, ownership of software, or the alleged misuse of confidential business information. Each requires a different investigation and evidentiary record.

We work with clients to understand their products, technology, customers, competitors, and business relationships. We examine the underlying intellectual property rights alongside the conduct at issue, identifying the evidence needed to establish a claim, challenge an allegation, or assess potential exposure.

Our attorneys then translate that record into clear arguments for judges, juries, and administrative tribunals.

Technical knowledge and marketplace understanding.

Intellectual property disputes often involve detailed technical or commercial questions. Patent cases may require analysis of source code, circuitry, product designs, or manufacturing processes. Trademark and unfair competition cases may turn on packaging, advertising, purchasing decisions, and how customers encounter competing products. Trade secret cases may require tracing access to confidential information and investigating its alleged use.

Our attorneys bring technical backgrounds and experience across industries to that work. We collaborate with company personnel, inventors, engineers, and appropriate experts to identify the facts that matter and explain their significance.

We focus discovery and expert analysis on the issues most likely to affect the outcome, while accounting for the cost and disruption litigation can impose on a business.

Enforcement and defense informed by the full IP lifecycle.

The strength of an intellectual property claim often depends on decisions made long before litigation begins. Patent drafting and prosecution, trademark selection and use, ownership agreements, licensing terms, and confidentiality practices can all affect the rights and remedies available in a dispute.

Our broader intellectual property practice helps us identify those connections. We examine how rights were created, acquired, maintained, and used, as well as the limitations that may affect enforcement.

For rights holders, that perspective helps us assess the basis for a claim and anticipate potential challenges. For accused parties, it helps us investigate defenses, identify weaknesses in the asserted rights, and evaluate practical options for responding.

Strategy from the first demand through trial and appeal.

Litigation strategy often begins before a complaint is filed. We investigate potential violations, assess claims and defenses, prepare and respond to demand letters, and evaluate whether negotiation or formal proceedings offer the most effective path forward.

When litigation becomes necessary, we represent clients through pleadings, discovery, depositions, expert proceedings, dispositive motions, mediation, trial, and appeal. We also coordinate related court and administrative proceedings when a dispute involves multiple forums.

Throughout the matter, we reassess the evidence, costs, available remedies, and opportunities for resolution. The objective is to keep litigation decisions aligned with what the client needs to achieve.

Commercial priorities guide our approach.

An intellectual property dispute is also a business problem. The challenged conduct may affect a core product, a planned launch, a valuable customer relationship, or the client’s ability to compete.

We work with clients to assess those consequences alongside the legal merits. Our analysis considers the value of the rights at issue, potential financial exposure, competitive relationships, demands on company personnel, and the practical benefit of the available remedies.

Where a negotiated resolution advances the client’s interests, we pursue it. Where the dispute requires a court ruling or trial, we build the record and prepare the case accordingly.