You represent a university, a research institute, a pharmaceutical industry, a biotech company, a German law firm or your own start-up company and are interested in obtaining a U.S. patent for your invention? You have questions about this and want to address them in an informative consultation BEFORE you incur any costs? No problem!

Should you be interested in a free initial consultation, please contact us. RUPPERT U.S. IP GmbH offers a free and non-binding initial consultation. In this introductory meeting, which may last about one to two hours, we will give you general advice about options available to you, according to your legal and/or IP matters, as well as foreseeable costs for your project. Below is a list of topics we may address during an initial consultation:

• What protection is available for your intellectual property? Patent, copyright, trademark, trade secret?
• What are the differences between patent, copyright, trademark, trade secret in terms of protection and cost?
• Is your invention eligible for a patent application?
• What are the considerations for obtaining a patent?
• What are the requirements for a U.S. patent?
• What information will your patent attorney need?
• Is your invention better protected with a design application or a utility model application?
• What are the deadlines you may need to meet to avoid jeopardizing your patent protection?
• To what extent are you knowledgeable about the market? Do you know what your “competition” is doing?
• … and of course, your questions!

During this initial meeting we hope to answer your first questions. Thereafter you can decide how you would like to proceed.

If you become a client of our firm, RUPPERT U.S. IP GmbH will offer you – also free of charge – and depending on your place of residence/work, either one face-to-face meeting, one video conference, or one phone call per month. You may want to use those options to discuss any of your current and new projects – without any costs for you. If you are within a 20 km radius of our office in Heidelberg, you will not incur any travel expenses.

For our clients, RUPPERT U.S. IP GmbH offers – also free of charge – and by arrangement, lectures in which we inform you about current issues regarding U.S. patent law. Upon request, we can arrange these lectures individually for our clients. Clients can choose from a catalog of topics on which we will then present a special and individualized lecture.