What is the Patent White Label Service?
DSL Patents Inc.’s Patent White Label service serves law firms without a registered patent agent.
It allows you to tell your clients that you can give them patent services and advice. We provide some of these services for you in a client-anonymous fashion. We meet (alone, or with you) with your clients as your representatives. You provide the remaining services, directly, with our support.
Additionally, we can supply excess capacity and expertise in underserved areas and technologies to registered patent firms.
Either way, our contract is with you, not your clients.
Who should use our Patent White Label Service?
DSL Patents Inc.’s Patent White Label service is primarily intended for business lawyers, law departments and/or law firms that serve tech clients but do not have internal access to a registered patent agent. However, even patent firms can use the service to access additional capacity and/or expertise when needed.
How the Patent White Label Service works
Ideally, you hire us to provide the Patent White Label service before the need arises. That allows both of us enough time to settle the terms of the service . But if you already have a client who needs patent advice, we can rapidly design a solution suitable for both you and your client.
Typically, we provide services to your client that hide the fact that we are not part of your firm. This may include giving us firm business cards, assigning us a firm telephone number and/or adding our agents to your firm’s web-site (for example, as counsel).
We do not need office space or equipment. You may choose to give us access to an unused office or conference room where we can meet with your client.
If you have ready-to-use templates for client and/or foreign agent correspondence and/or patent office submissions, we will use them. Otherwise, we will use our own materials.
Typically, you do not have internal access to a registered patent agent, so we sign and file the various patent applications and responses on your behalf. If you do have such access, we can give you drafts, to be reviewed, signed and filed by the agent.
We send our invoices directly to you. We usually bill on a fixed tariff and/or percentage of our billable rate that gives you additional room to bill.
Patent advice our patent firm supplies for you
Canadian law distinguishes between legal advice, and patent preparation (and related services).
With this in mind, we have divided up the various aspects of patent advice into services that should be provided by a registered patent agent or patent firm (such as DSL Patents Inc.), from those that you could provide with our assistance.
Services that we propose to provide on your behalf for your client include:
- Giving a patentability opinion based on a patent search for a proposed patent application
- Drafting a patent application for Canada, the US or around the world
- Filing a Canadian or Patent Cooperation Treaty patent application
- Analyzing CIPO Examiner’s Reports or a foreign patent office’s Office Action
- Paying fees on a Canadian patent or application
- Conducting interviews with a patent examiner by phone or in person
- Appealing a final rejection before the Canadian Patent Appeal Board
- Filing a disclaimer of a part of a Canadian patent
- Submitting prior art against a Canadian patent
- Conducting patent re-examination proceedings for or against a Canadian patent
- Keeping a patent-specific docketing system that:
- maintains important (and non-extendible) deadlines and
- provides reminders well in advance of such deadlines
- Having patent errors & omissions insurance for such services
Patent advice your firm can supply directly with our help
However, you can provide other patent (usually legal) advice, directly to your clients, with our support. This includes:
- Hiring a searcher for a proposed patent application
- Directing a foreign firm to file and prosecute a foreign application, including paying fees
- Registering related documents, like assignments, licenses and technology, royalty and security agreements
- Dealing with labour, insolvency and/or bankruptcy issues relating to patents and applications
- Giving Canadian validity, infringement and/or freedom to operate legal opinions
- Hiring a foreign firm to give a validity, infringement and/or freedom to operate legal opinion in another jurisdiction
- Correspondence related to patent infringement
- Litigating Canadian patent infringement and validity issues
- Reporting to and billing your client for all of these services (whether provided by us or your, with our assistance)
Our experience with the Patent White Labeling Service
While we have only recently formally instituted this service as a general service offering, we have been providing such services to our clients for many years. To date, we have provided such services, since at least 2014, to:
- national IP boutique firms
- leading patent agencies, and even
- a multinational telecommunications giant.
What about conflicts?
Although some of us are lawyers, we do not practise law. That means we don’t compete with you. It also means we don’t follow conventional legal conflict of interest rules. They would prevent us from providing this service. When appropriate, we respect your business conflict concerns.
You can see the proprietary ethical rules that we follow here.