People and products are crisscrossing the globe more quickly and with greater freedom than ever. At the same time, consumers and businesses are constantly calling for updated features, designs, and innovation. Manufacturers, suppliers, and retailers in the automotive and transportation industries must meet these demands while remaining efficient and profitable.
Marshall Gerstein has procured, enforced, and defended patents, trademarks, and other intellectual property on behalf of numerous midsize and billion-dollar, multinational clients. As former in-house intellectual property counsel and as trusted outside counsel, our attorneys have deep, cross-sector experience and are well versed in the products, markets, and legal frameworks that apply to various types of automotive and transportation products, technologies, and services. We are innovation partners par excellence, applying our knowledge of IP law and industry best practices to help clients maximize the value of their IP portfolios, achieve greater efficiencies and predictability, and realize improved financial outcomes.
Identify, protect, and realize value
We help clients identify proprietary IP and trade secrets through in-depth invention capture sessions and comprehensive IP audits, and by acquiring rights to third-party IP through licensing, supplier, distribution, and agency agreements, contracts, and programs. We regularly conduct IP due diligence in the context of strategic alliances, mergers, acquisitions, and other corporate transactions, and provide competitive assessments of IP owned and developed by industry rivals and allies.
We have extensive experience in the following:
- Patents, including patentability, infringement, and validity searches and opinions, prosecution, portfolio management, government contracting and export rules, and other issues relating to design, utility, and business method patents
- Trademarks and copyrights, including prosecution, enforcement, and counseling
- IP litigation, including inter partes reviews, post-grant reviews, appeals and interferences, reexaminations and reissues, trials, appeals, and negotiated settlements
Spanning the industry
We work with clients in virtually every sector, including:
- Airlines and aviation
- Automotive manufacturing, including traditional, hybrid, and alternative-fuel vehicles
- Automotive parts, accessories, and supplies
- Construction, farming, heavy machinery, and asphalt/paving
- Fleet management
- Logistics
- Motorcycles
- Personal motorized recreation vehicles (e.g., ATVs, snow vehicles, personal watercraft)
- Shipping containers
- Transit and ground-passenger transportation
- Transportation service providers
Bumper to bumper, ground to sky
Our attorneys have drafted, prosecuted, and enforced patents, trademarks, and related intellectual property involving a wide array of products and systems, from snowplow attachments to touchless tailgates, as well as:
- Alternative-energy and hybrid technology
- Autonomous vehicles and related systems
- Braking systems, chassis, fuel injectors, and powertrains
- Cargo handling systems
- Garage-door technology
- GPS, guidance, and communications systems
- Heating and ventilation systems and controls, including roof, window, and heating systems
- Marine vessels and related components and systems
- Passenger-seating systems
- Process control valves, regulators, equipment and systems
- Radar, safety, car alarms, and security equipment and cameras
- Regulators, valves, pumps, filters, and engine control technology
- Transfer cases
- Transport telematics
- Vehicle operator/passenger/user interface applications
Representative Clients
- BASF Group
- BOSS Snowplows (a division of The Toro Company)
- Emerson Electric Co.
- Gogo Air, LLC
- J.C. Bamford Excavators Limited