Transactional Intellectual Property

From simple non-disclosure agreements to sophisticated international licensing and joint venture arrangements, our Technology and Intellectual Property attorneys possess extensive experience in structuring and implementing transactions in which copyrights, patents, trade secrets, trademarks and other intellectual property assets play a critical role.  In addition to providing counsel regarding state of the art strategies for commercializing a client's intellectual property rights, such as through development, license, marketing, distribution and other technology transfer agreements, we regularly advise our clients concerning a wide variety of transactional intellectual property matters, including:

  • Crafting innovative technology use, delivery and transfer agreements, such as those related to application service providers and open source software
  • Forming new entities, joint ventures, partnerships and other strategic alliances to leverage intellectual property assets
  • Performing due diligence on intellectual property matters in mergers, acquisitions, financing and other transactions
  • Drafting and reviewing securities disclosures relating to intellectual property matters in public and private statements
  • Obtaining and perfecting security interests in intellectual property for financing and other transactions
  • Conducting intellectual property audits for clients internal business planning purposes or other external use


These services are provided for a host of clients ranging from individual entrepreneurs and emerging technology companies to large established businesses.  Consistent with our collaborative "team approach" to problem solving, our Technology and Intellectual Property attorneys work closely with other Whiteford attorneys on transactional intellectual property matters, including our Emerging Business and Venture Finance Group, our Corporate and Securities Group and our Employment Law Group.

Aligning With Your Investors: Why Patent-Backed Product Innovation Is Becoming the Decisive Competitive Advantage

In the first quarter of 2026, petitions to invalidate issued U.S. patents at the Patent Trial and Appeal Board fell to 131 — a 64 percent drop from the year before and the lowest quarterly total in the tribunal's history. If you are not a patent lawyer, that statistic probably reads as trivia. It shouldn't. It is one of several signals from the past twelve months that the value of an American patent has shifted — sharply upward — and that shift is already changing how investors underwrite product innovation.

AI in the Deal Room: Why Intellectual Property Diligence Matters More in Acquisitions of AI-Enabled Products

Acquirers are increasingly looking at businesses whose products use AI, depend on AI, or sit close enough to AI that the buyer expects future value from data, automation, software or model-enabled workflows. The target may not be an “AI company” in the headline sense. It may be a medical-device company using machine-learning outputs in a diagnostic workflow, a software platform embedding generative AI in a user interface, a manufacturer using computer vision in quality control, a services business with proprietary datasets and automation, or a consumer brand relying on AI-created marketing assets.