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Hill & Schumacher is a Patent and Trademark Firm serving clients and associates across the globe since 1994, conveniently located in midtown Toronto.
Copyright © 2023 Hill & Schumacher. All rights reserved.
At Hill and Schumacher, we strive for excellence in every patent application that we prepare and take pride in having drafted over 800 originating patent applications.
We thrive on working collaboratively with inventors to develop a deep understanding of their invention and its patentability. We challenge ourselves to develop and claim the broadest and most valuable forms of an invention, while also developing a claim strategy based on inventive concepts that provide strategic defensive positions against potential prior art challenges.
We educate and empower our clients to plan and execute international filing strategies based on a balance between opportunity and cost.
We have developed a strategic approach to US patent prosecution that focuses on establishing a collaborative rapport with patent examiners via interviews, with the goal of understanding the mindset of the Examiner and identifying the gap between the Examiner’s position and our position. We then leverage this knowledge and understanding to make informed decisions on prosecution, appeal strategy, and continuation practice, resulting in efficient prosecution and a high allowance rate.
Hill & Schumacher offers trademark filing services for a wide variety of clients in Canada as well as in foreign jurisdictions. We focus on preparing trademark applications that provide the broadest protection possible while also meeting the requirements of the Trademark Act and Trademark Regulations. We understand the importance of your brand and the goods and services you offer under your brand. We strive to ensure your needs are met during the preparation and filing of your trademark application, including working with you on the list of goods and services and advising of any expected issues that may arise during prosecution.
At Hill & Schumacher we have assisted our clients with filing trademark applications in many countries across the world. Our connections with foreign associates have been established over many years, forming trustworthy professional relationships that put our client’s needs first. We have many years of experience managing extensive trademark portfolios for our clients, covering dozens of countries. We have also assisted many foreign associates with filing Canadian trademark applications on behalf of their clients.
Hill & Schumacher has successfully prosecuted hundreds of trademark applications, in not only Canada but across the world. We focus on meeting the needs of our clients while also ensuring the trademark applications we prosecute meet the needs of the necessary Trademark Office. We work together with clients to ensure trademark applications are prosecuted efficiently, but thoroughly, so that a registration is obtained sooner rather than later, but with the broadest protection available.
At Hill & Schumacher the services we offer include filing Industrial Design applications in Canada as well as the filing of Design Patents around the world. With our keen attention to detail, we focus on ensuring design drawings encompass our client’s goals with regard to design protection, as well as ensuring we are meeting the requirements of the respective Design Office.
We take pride in having assisted our clients with the filing of design patents in many countries across the world, including, but not limited to, the U.S., Europe, China, Korea, Japan, and Australia. Our expertise and the expertise our foreign associates provide, ensures our clients are filing designs that provide the broadest protection available, around the world.
Hill & Schumacher have successfully prosecuted several industrial designs and design patents, in Canada as well as abroad. Our long-term professional relationship with an expert draftsman means we are capable of both drafting and revising drawings for our clients when needed. Our understanding of what Canadian Examiners are looking for, as well as our strong professional connections with foreign associates, enable us to prosecute industrial designs and design patents efficiently and effectively. While our goal is to obtain a Design Registration as efficiently as possible, we take pride in our attentive review of the requirements of Design Examiners as well as our meticulous review of drawings, so that the best design protection is obtained for our clients.
Hill and Schumacher has a wealth of experience working with clients to develop and refine their IP strategy.
We take a pragmatic and tactical approach to developing an IP Strategy, often based on the following phases: (i) an intake phase facilitating awareness and understanding of commercialization strategy, industry structure and competition, (ii) a detailed IP audit, (iii) a strategic review of the results of the IP audit, including performing an IP SWOT analysis, (iv) the drafting of a plan for trade secret protection and prioritized IP filings, and (v) the development of a narrative that clearly and concisely communicates the IP strategy, with an emphasis on value creation and preservation.
These initial phases are often followed by specific IP actions, such as patentability and/or clearance searching and the filing of new patent and/or trademark applications.
Hill and Schumacher offers a wide variety of search services that include patentability searches, state of the art patent searches, freedom-to-operate searches and trademark searches.
Our focused approach to patentability searching involves a creative brainstorming phase to identify the invention, assess subject matter eligibility, and break the invention down into elements that yield an initial set of keywords. We then identify potential hits through an iterative combination of (i) keyword searching, (ii) classification searching, (iii) citation analysis, and (iv) semantic searching, which is performed in parallel with searching of the non-patent literature.
We believe that patent searches are best performed directly by the agent who will draft the patent application, as this exposes the agent to the depth and nuances of the prior art and enhances the overall quality of a patent application prepared with the benefit of this knowledge.
At Hill and Schumacher, we recognize that there is no one-size-fits-all approach to freedom-to-operate (FTO) searching and analysis. We strive to design a level of FTO analysis that is right-sized for the stage of the company, and work closely with our clients to carefully scope an appropriate and meaningful search. Please contact us to discuss our FTO philosophy and options for proceeding with an FTO search and analysis.
IP audits involve the identification and documentation of the various forms of IP within a company and a review of IP management practices within a company. A comprehensive IP audit can be highly beneficial in enabling the development of an action plan for ensuring appropriate protection of IP assets, the assessment of strengths and weaknesses associated with a company’s IP position, the development of strategies for mitigating potential IP risks, the ability to uncover opportunities for cost savings within a portfolio, and the development of a strategic narrative communicating the value of the IP within a company.
Hill and Schumacher is often called upon by Venture Capital firms to support IP due diligence activities related to early stage investments. To learn more, please contact us to discuss our approach to IP due diligence and how we can provide assistance.
