FEATURED ARTICLE

Portsmouth patent attorney Phillip Decker likes the intersection of science and the law.

In an ever-widening global economy fueled by the growth of World Wide Web, there is likely no hotter topic in legal circles than intellectual property.

Consider recent developments in Europe. The European Union said it was stepping up efforts to combat intellectual property theft from countries such as China, Chile, Russia, Ukraine and Turkey because it represented “a threat to the heart of the European economy.”

After a nine-day conference in Geneva, Switzerland, the World Intellectual Property Organization announced that it was committing more investigative resources to help protect copyrights, trademarks and patents from Katmandu to Kalamazoo.

In the modern global economy, it’s absolutely vital for companies to act locally and think internationally to protect vital intellectual property.

What is a patent? According to one patent-focused Web site, it is a creation of the intellect that has commercial value, including copyrighted property such as literary or artistic works, and ideational property, such as patents, appellations of origin, business methods, and industrial processes.

While the definition may appear straightforward, the stakes for successfully securing and defending patent and trademark property can be immense — a difference between success and failure and perhaps tens of millions of dollars in revenue.

“We have seen an increase in the pace of operations in a broad spectrum of technologies both locally and nationally,” said Kevin Farrell, a patent attorney at the firm of Pierce Atwood, one of the fastest growing law firms in New England.

Pierce Atwood, which has its headquarters in Portland, Maine, has five patent attorneys in its Portsmouth office which reflects, Farrell said, a desire to cover “underserviced areas outside of major markets” such as Boston.

“The infrastructure and professional capabilities have grown,” he said about the growth of patent law in the region.

Farrell, a resident of York, Maine, and graduate of Northeastern University Law School, also represents the modern patent attorney. Before law school, he worked two years in an academic setting at Harvard Medical School. Today, he focuses on the quickly-evolving biotechnology sector.

Phillip Decker is the Portsmouth attorney for Manchester-based firm of Mesmer & Deleault, a three-attorney firm which specializes in business, patent and trademark law. Decker has kept busy in the Seacoast region since he graduated in 1995 from Franklin Pierce Law Center in Concord.

Franklin Pierce is one of the top patent and intellectual property schools in the country and Decker said he didn’t have much of a problem finding work — especially because he was a licensed engineer.

“I worked for Powerspan Corp. as their half-time in-house counsel and half-time as an engineer,” Decker said about his roles at the New Durham-based company that specialized in producing cleaner emission technologies for older generation coal and oil-burning power plants.

Before joining Mesmer & Deleault, Decker worked on his own and was kept busy filing patent applications for clients in New Hampshire, southern Maine and northern Massachusetts.

He said there were not many patent attorneys in the Seacoast when he started but he has seen slow and steady growth during the past decade.

Decker has overseen a wide range of patent prosecutions, ranging from a simple, money-making horse blanket clip to sophisticated engineering devices.

According the N.H. Bar Association, there were 324 patents issued to New Hampshire companies, colleges and universities in 2005 by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office. That is a 10 percent decrease from 2004 which corresponds to a 12 percent decrease for patent grants nationwide.

The printing press company Goss International of Dover rated number two on the N.H. Bar Association’s list of top businesses granted patents in 2005 (the military contractor BAE Systems in Nashua was tops in the state). Goss received 18 patents, a major increase from two granted in 2004. (Disclosure: Seacoast Media Group, the parent company of Seacoast Ventures, recently purchased a new printing press from Goss.)

Decker said that the ebb and flow of patent granting can be deceptive. He has observed that when the economy slows, companies often decrease their research and development budgets and patent applications. When the economic outlook improves, patent prosecutions (the application process) increase.

“Fluctuations of 10 percent or more in the number of patents per year is common,” said Ashlyn Lembree of Franklin Pierce Law Center and chair of the N.H. Bar Association’s Intellectual Property Section. “You have to look at the long term trend, which is going up.”

Securing a patent grant is no walk in the park. It costs $10,000 simply to apply to the U.S. Patent and Office and if the paperwork is not precise, if the descriptions are not exact and if it’s not sufficiently differentiated from existing patents, an application will be rejected. Even if it’s accepted, patience is required. “It’s averaging three years, sometimes longer,” Decker said.

Tim O’Hagan, legal counsel for Portsmouth-based software application company Bottomline Technologies, said “sometimes we get (approval) in as little as 15 months; it can also take as long as four years.” O’Hagan said that Bottomline has filed for 31 patent grants and as of June 30, eight have been approved.

One of the problems, said Kevin Farrell of Pierce Atwood, is that the USPTO is short of the highly specialized patent attorneys that review and approve patent applications. The main reason is simple market economics: attorneys can make a lot more money on Farrell’s side of the law than working as a government lawyer.

A recent development at the University of New Hampshire could prove beneficial to the patent application community. The Whittemore School of Business and Economics has received a near $1 million grant from the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office. The grant will finance the school’s Enterprise Integration Research Center to build a virtual network linking state-based uniform commercial code databases with federally based patent database.

Steven Bolander, dean of the business school, said the goal of the project is to stimulate entrepreneurial ventures by developing a national system that provides comprehensive information to would-be financiers about intellectual property liens that will support the rapid commercialization of innovative products.

Patent lawyers are top notch research analysts who rarely go near a courtroom. They won’t be stars in television shows such as “Boston Legal” nor display any public Perry Mason-like feats of legal jujitsu. But their occupation is unique because they are guides for new ideas that can have profound impact on a business, on the economy and even more.

“Technology is the exciting part,” said O’Hagan of Bottomline Technologies. “Once you see how a single invention (patent) can improve a business, make the job easier, make life better, it’s very fulfilling. Being able to watch the most cutting edge technology is why I got into this.”

Find out more:

About the patent law program at Franklin Pierce law Center: www.piercelaw.edu

About Pierce Atwood, LLP, see www.pierceatwood.com

About U.S. Patent & Trademark Office and how to file a patent application, see www.uspto.gov.

About Mesmer & Deleault, see www.biz-patlaw.com.