Our History
In 1993, Micheal Schwegman, Steven Lundberg and Warren Woessner, left a prominent Minneapolis IP law firm to establish their own firm. They recognized that conventional IP firms tended to concentrate significantly more resources on litigation than on patent prosecution. As a result, many firms were hindering the ability of skilled patent prosecutors to do their best work, and therefore possibly shortchanging their clients.
The founders developed a new IP law firm model, in which obtaining the strongest patents is the sole focus of the firm. They founded SLW to provide patent preparation and prosecution services for emerging and established corporations and research institutions.
Today, Schwegman, Lundberg & Woessner has grown to 80 attorneys and represents a spectrum of Fortune 500 companies and major universities that are leaders in high technology. The firm obtained over 3,000 patents in its first ten years.
Who We Are
Over 80 attorneys make up the SLW team. The firm has eighteen shareholders, which include Micheal L. Schwegman, Steven W. Lundberg, Warren D. Woessner, Bradley A. Forrest, Thomas F. Brennan, A. James Nelson, Timothy E. Bianchi, Janet E. Embretson, Eduardo E. Drake, Janal M. Kalis, Ann M. McCrackin, Catherine I. Klima-Silberg, Andre Marais, Suneel Arora, Gary Speier, Garth Vivier, Michael Lynch, and Robin Chadwick. The firm also has twelve officers, which include John Dahl, David Black, Peter Maki, Joe Mehrle, Mark Muller, David Peterson, Marv Beekman, Tim Clise, Barbara Clark, Greg Gorrie, Gregg Peacock and David Cochran.
Our Mission
It is the mission of SLW to be the highest quality provider of intellectual property services.
To further its mission of providing cost-effective, high-quality protection for its clients' intellectual property, the firm concentrates solely on patent prosecution and refrains from the active conduct of litigation. It does, however, support litigation through opinion work, IP audits and expert witness services. The firm also developed and employs sophisticated proprietary systems to manage and control patent preparation and prosecution.
Our Commitment to our Clients
Everyone at SLW makes it a priority to focus first on the needs of the client, putting their welfare ahead of the firm's own gain. In fact, this founding principle of SLW is the primary reason the firm has always refrained from active trial work. SLW refuses to shortchange its clients, as may happen in conventional IP law practice where litigation is often the key focus. Instead, SLW deals with the issues that most directly affect the prosecution of its clients' valued intellectual properties. SLW attorneys are experts in patent prosecution, counseling and opinion work. Clients can count on them to act in their best interest as they apply their skill and experience on their behalf.
At SLW, paralegals and case management staff are not assigned to attorneys; they are assigned directly to clients. This way, they will know the client's needs and respond to them with a sense of ownership. Support staff is thoroughly trained on compliance with PTO rules and procedures. If you elect to partner with SLW, you would be assigned a case-management assistant, a U.S. paralegal, and a foreign-filing paralegal if needed to efficiently and expertly assist the attorneys in building and caring for your patent portfolio.
SLW Vision
To facilitate its commitment to client service and satisfaction, SLW provides its clients with Internet access to their complete patent application files. SLW has developed and employs sophisticated proprietary systems to manage and control patent preparation and prosecution, making the entire process more efficient for all involved. FoundationIP provides SLW clients with instant 24-hour secure access to each step of the patent prosecution process and to their intellectual property portfolio.
Foundation IP stores and manages the firm's IP matters, including scanned documents, docket dates and notifications, assigned tasks, sent and received communications, notes and discussions. Through appropriate password and encryption techniques, SLW clients are able to access this information from FoundationIP. All information is encrypted to preserve security of confidential client information. The automated docketing system and its Internet accessibility with “anytime-anywhere" accessibility allows clients to instantly track and coordinate all of their docketing matters. Through the efficiencies this system offers, SLW saves its clients money, provides better service and focuses on protecting its clients' technology.
SLW Services
SLW practices in a variety of patent areas, including client counseling, licensing, prelitigation advice, opinions and patenting. Such services include portfolio planning and management, patenting high technology, developing and drafting (non)infringement and (in)validity opinions, performing due diligence investigations and drafting related opinions, providing prelitigation advice, counseling regarding adversarial situations, preparing and prosecuting patent applications, handling appeals, interferences and foreign oppositions.
SLW Quality-Control System
Although the commitment of attorneys and support staff is the very heart of the firm's quality control system, SLW reinforces the attributes of the individual attorneys and staff with a system of checklists and proprietary case-management software to ensure use of industry best practices.
SLW presently uses over 100 checklists to govern or guide almost every aspect of the firm's value-added services. For example, the firm has special checklists for preparation of patent applications, intake of patent-application filing receipts, and processing of Notices of Allowance. SLW continually updates its checklists and can readily integrate any of your checklists into the firm's quality process.
In addition to the numerous checklists, SLW's quality-control system includes unique and proprietary case-management software. The software includes an extensive document-and-data merge capability that not only facilitates error-free document generation and use of electronic file wrappers, but also consistent adherence to PTO rules and related best practices. For instance, the PTO rules were recently changed to limit the option of filing continuing prosecution applications (CPAs) to those parent applications filed before May 29, 2000. SLW software automatically creates the appropriate CPA Form with all the necessary data, but only after confirming that the filing date of the parent application meets the date requirements, thus preventing improper CPA filings. SLW learned that even six months after the CPA rule changes, the PTO was receiving scores of improper CPA applications, suggesting that many firms and their clients would have benefited from SLW's built-in safeguards.
SLW's proprietary case management software also allows the firm to electronically link together families of patent applications. One significant advantage of this feature is that it helps the firm keep up with the complex duty-of-disclosure issues that rise in such families and reduces the risk of inadvertently compromising the credibility of client portfolios.
SLW Commitment to the Community
Involvement in the greater Twin Cities community is important at SLW. From its participation in the Minnesota Aids Walk to involvement with the United Way, SLW attorneys and staff lead by example. In 2001, the Charlie Brown Around Town live auction was held, where over 60 Charlie Brown statues from St. Paul's 2001 tribute to Charles Schulz were auctioned off. SLW was the proud sponsor of “No Blockheads Allowed” located at the Science Museum of Minnesota. SLW also sponsors annual golf tournaments that benefit local charities and causes, including the Fraser Organization.
