IP Litigation

Intellectual property is worth what you can enforce, and an infringer rarely stops until a court or a credible threat of one makes them. Hank has litigated IP disputes for 29 years, copyright and trademark infringement, cybersquatting, trade secret theft, trade dress, and rights of publicity, for Fortune 500 companies, recording artists, and businesses protecting what they built.

IP cases often turn on speed, because the longer an infringement runs, the more it costs you in sales and in market confusion. When a competitor copies a work, knocks off a product's look, or poaches a trade secret, Hank moves for a temporary restraining order and a preliminary injunction to stop it before the market damage hardens, then builds the case on the elements the outcome turns on, access and substantial similarity in copyright, likelihood of confusion in trademark, and reasonable secrecy measures in trade secrets.

What a win is worth depends on the claim. Copyright registration made in time opens statutory damages from $750 to $30,000 per work, up to $150,000 for willful infringement, plus attorney's fees; the Anticybersquatting Consumer Protection Act reaches $1,000 to $100,000 per domain; and trademark and trade secret cases can recover the defendant's profits, the plaintiff's losses, and in the worst cases an order destroying the infringing goods. Hank pursues the remedy that fits, an injunction when the goal is stopping the conduct, damages when the harm is done.

Hank has prosecuted and defended IP claims across energy, media, software, eCommerce, manufacturing, aviation, fashion, and construction, in federal court and through appeal. Every engagement works toward the same result, control of the asset restored to the party that owns it, and a cost imposed on the party that took it.