Kinney & Lange
Trusted IP Law Partner and Advisor

Successfully navigating the complex tenets of IP law is a challenge for companies of all sizes. Companies, large and small, and independent business people rely on trusted advisors to meet their IP law needs.

Kinney & Lange is a full-service intellectual property law firm, practicing in all aspects of IP law including patents, product licensing, trademarks, trade secrets, copyrights, and IP litigation across fields relevant to technology-focused businesses. In an interview with CIO Applications, George Romanik, a shareholder of Kinney & Lange, offers insight into how his firm brings a world of difference to companies with its experience in IP and technology law.

Looking through the Rearview Mirror

David Fairbairn, president of Kinney & Lange, was one of the firm’s founders forty years ago. “The idea was to set up a client-centric law firm to serve businesses of all sizes. The four founding members had a combined 100+ years of experience as in-house IP lawyers.” Still driven by the original vision, the primary goal of the firm is to secure, license, and defend national and international intellectual property rights for its clients throughout the world with a business-savvy focus. While much of our work is with the US Patent and Trademark Office and its global counterparts, we routinely represent clients in litigation around the country. We take a holistic view of our clients and help them integrate IP protection with their business strategies to get the successful results they need.

Kinney & Lange currently serves a wide range of clients from Fortune 500 corporations to startup companies in a variety of fields, including IT, aerospace and defense, agriculture, manufacturing, and chemicals. To each, the firm offers the highest quality of IP services combined with flexible and competitive pricing consistent with the needs of a modern business environment. “We see ourselves as a trusted partner and advisor that serve as an extension of our clients’ in-house lawyers and, in the absence of an internal IP law team, an extension of the business team for our clients.”

Proven Record of Capabilities

Kinney & Lange offers clients a wide range of capabilities that encompasses IP audits to determine the scope of existing IP assets and opportunities to protect new IP assets, to risk mitigation services, including review of competitor IP positions, design-around studies, non-infringement/validity opinions, and challenges to competitor patents.

Additionally our firm offers services for IP asset protection, including filing patent and trademark applications along with trade secret, confidential information, and copyright protection programs and transactional support, including IP and IT licensing, customer, partner, and supplier agreements, and M&A support.

A recent engagement with a client that is morphing its business model from a product-oriented to a services-oriented approach shows the value the firm brings to clients. To help the client make a successful transition, Kinney & Lange lawyers worked closely with the client to identify appropriate IP strategies. After detailed discussions with the client’s in-house legal team, Kinney & Lange lawyers met with their business, technical, and sales leaders to confirm an understanding of the client’s business needs and direction. The firm is helping the client protect its IP assets with patents and update its business agreements to ensure that it owns innovations generated with its customer engagements. “We don’t just work from templates and modify language; we come up with a playbook on how to work through an initial proposal and mold it into a plausible solution that’s a win-win for our client and their customers.”

Staying Ahead of the Curve

While Kinney & Lange’s strategic location in the upper Midwest and strong work ethics add value to client engagements, what steers Kinney & Lange ahead of other firms is its proactive approach to collecting client feedback and constantly evaluating performance against clients’ expectations. Also, the firm stays abreast of legal and technology developments and continuously improves processes to ensure that the firm works efficiently. Kinney & Lange’s lawyers are very familiar with innovative issues, including protecting innovations related to artificial intelligence, agile development, the internet of things, and other computer-implemented developments.

So far, on its journey, Kinney & Lange has been successful working with its diverse client base. Continuing on the same path, Kinney & Lange is actively looking for opportunities to work with new clients who are trying to wade through the challenging water of IP laws. The firm intends to continue collaborating with clients and acting as an extension of their internal IP law teams and/or business teams to expand their IP law management capabilities.