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Biography
Whether it's a newly developed product or an improvement on an existing product, patents are the best way to protect your market share and profit margins. Attorney Jeff Sokol has experience in drafting and filing patents from a wide range of industries, including design patents.
Trademarks are a critical asset for businesses and their products. Securing a trademark gives you legal ownership of your business’s brand image. Many try to file for a trademark without the assistance of a lawyer and fail. Having an experienced trademark attorney will make sure it is done correctly the first time, saving you time and money.
As the Vice President of Bend Industries, I saw firsthand how Attorney Sokol’s patent prosecution experience allowed Bend to obtain valuable protection for the concrete building and landscaping blocks we developed. Even more importantly, his litigation experience played a key role in quickly settling a patent litigation brought by our competitor, Anchor Wall Systems. Although AWS’s patent took over 9 years to obtain from the Patent Office and was challenged by another manufacturer, Bend settled the matter. As the AWS patent was ultimately upheld on appeal, Bend’s early settlement saved us years of frustration and expense. Attorney Sokol was even able to have our insurance carrier cover most of our litigation expenses.
Rusch Machine & Design is in a highly competitive metal fabricating industry. Good selling machines are quickly replicated by competitors. The patents Attorney Sokol obtains capture the essence of my designs and keep competitors at bay. His attention to detail and the quality of his work is demonstrated in that I often learn a thing or two about my designs from the patents he prepares and obtains for them.
During my 30 year career as an independent marketing research survey expert, I worked on hundreds of cases and almost exclusively with a wide range of law firms and others where the research issue surveyed primarily involved intellectual property matters. Attorney Sokol’s farm silo unloader case stands out as particularly interesting and illustrative of a good working relationship. At the time the matter was on a short time frame - one year. Although short, we worked together through trial. The survey research effort involved a pilot test of two surveys (secondary meaning and likelihood of confusion) to determine efficacy and propriety of the research design, survey instruments and the merit, or lack of, for Attorney Sokol's client. The following main survey provided significant numbers in both surveys. Attorney Sokol used full survey reports on secondary meaning and likelihood of confusion in combination with testimony, charts and photos to identify the many different features in various alternate silo unloader designs. The case culminated in a successful jury verdict in favor of his client on trade dress infringement.