Intellectual Property & Technology
On the use of artificial intelligence in a law office
Where the firm uses it, where it does not, and the standing rule that a lawyer reads every word that leaves this office.
January 9, 2026
The assets that matter most to a modern business are the ones that do not appear on its balance sheet.
The approach
Intellectual Property & Technology covers trademarks, copyrights, trade secrets and patent coordination; the licensing that turns those rights into revenue; and the technology contracting, data privacy and artificial-intelligence questions that now attach to nearly every commercial relationship.
The department is deliberately practical. Clearance before adoption, registration before dispute, and a licence that says what the parties actually agreed — these three habits prevent more loss than any enforcement action will ever recover.
Major areas within the department
Clearance, registration and enforcement of trademarks, and the registration, licensing and infringement questions that attach to copyrighted content.
Protecting proprietary information from misappropriation, and coordinating patent strategy alongside outside prosecution counsel where one is needed.
Agreements that license intellectual property or build and operate technology — including SaaS and software development agreements.
Privacy compliance and breach response, and the governance questions a business now faces when it deploys artificial-intelligence tools against its own or a client’s data.
From the journal
Where the firm uses it, where it does not, and the standing rule that a lawyer reads every word that leaves this office.
Resources
Representative matters
Details are altered to preserve confidentiality.
Questions
Must I register my trademark?
Use creates rights; registration makes them enforceable nationwide. It remains the cheapest insurance available in this area of law.
Who owns work made by a contractor?
The contractor, unless the agreement assigns it. This is the most common and most expensive drafting failure we are asked to repair.
Can output from an AI tool be protected?
Purely machine-generated output generally cannot be copyrighted. What matters is documenting the human authorship in the result, at the time it is made.
Related
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