All Practices

Patents

Hughes Hubbard has a group of licensed patent attorneys with technical expertise in areas such as electrical, software, mechanical, chemistry, biology, materials science, optics and physics, as well as strong industry knowledge in the fields of securities, banking and finance, electronic commerce, media and entertainment. We prepare and prosecute hundreds of patent applications per year both in the United States and, through a network of foreign associates, internationally. Some of the technologies with which we are regularly involved include software, financial derivatives, gas turbine technology, Internet business processes, electrical circuitry, semiconductor manufacture, telecommunication equipment, complex machinery, medical devices, chemical products and processes, and optics. Frequently, patent matters require an interdisciplinary approach, and our various intellectual property lawyers work closely to bring together the best team to serve our clients' needs. Some of our patent specialty areas are outlined below.

Representative Patents

Software Patents
Software patents represents one of the fastest growing areas of our intellectual property practice, and one in which we have great strength. We work with a number of software vendors, from the well established to the very small, to help them formulate legal protection strategies suited to their needs. The kinds of software patents obtained by our attorneys are varied and include system and application level software, in areas such as sorting, distributed backup, encryption, database development, financial processing, communications, virtual reality and graphics. Exemplary patents include the following:

U.S. Patent No. 6,512,448, entitled Multilingual Wireless Messaging System
International Application No. WO 209554A2, entitled System for Providing Session-Based Network Privacy, Private, Persistent Storage, and Discretionary Access Control for Sharing Private Data
International Application No. WO 2059793A2, entitled System and Method for Generating Automatic User Interface for Arbitrarily Large or Complex Databases
U.S. Patent No. 6,408,314, entitled Method of Performing a High-Performance Sort which Gains Efficiency by Reading Input File Blocks Sequentially

Business and Financial Patents
Our attorneys have prepared and filed numerous patent applications directed to methods of doing business and related complex business software systems. Examples of our work in these fields include:

U.S. Publication No. 20010025264A1, entitled Object Oriented System for Managing Complex Financial Instruments
U.S. Publication No. 22120547A1, entitled Method and System for Administering a Multi-Interface System providing Financial Instrument Market Data
International Application No. WO 188803A2, entitled System and Method for Consumer-Selected Advertising and Branding in Interactive Media

Mechanical and Energy-Related Patents
We have had considerable experience in preparing and prosecuting mechanical applications in sophisticated areas such as gas turbines, as well as in more traditional areas. Examples include:

U.S. Patent No. 6,460,343, entitled Gas Turbine Engine
U.S. Publication No. 22152753A1, entitled Fuel Mixing in a Gas Turbine Engine
U.S. Patent No. 5,881,708, entitled Backpack for Heavy Bulky Footwear

For more information on this practice or to join our mailing list and receive future publications, please contact Ronald Abramson or Peter Sullivan.