Hirzel Dreyfuss & Dempsey, PLLC
INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY LAW
COPYRIGHT /
TRADEMARKS /
PATENTS / LICENSING
We provide our clients experienced legal representation in matters involving copyright protection, trademark disputes, patent litigation, and licensing transactions and disputes.
Intellectual Property
How Hirzel Dreyfuss & Dempsey Can Help
We litigate intellectual property disputes. Our work is in the courts and in arbitration, on both sides: for owners enforcing a mark, and for businesses defending against an enforcement action they believe overreaches.
We are not a filing shop. If you need a trademark application prosecuted or a patent drafted, that is different work and we will tell you so. What we do is handle the dispute once one exists, in Florida circuit courts, the United States District Courts for the Southern and Middle Districts of Florida, and the United States Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit.
Trademark and Trade Dress Disputes
Most of what we see begins the same way. A business has spent years building a name, and someone else starts using something close to it. Or a cease and desist letter arrives from a company with far more resources, claiming a mark you have used in good faith for a decade.
We handle infringement and unfair competition claims under the Lanham Act and Florida law, including likelihood of confusion disputes, trade dress claims, false advertising, and the counterclaims that often follow. We have appeared for both claimants and defendants, and we have defended businesses against enforcement actions brought by national organizations with substantially greater resources.
Domain Names and Cybersquatting
Domain disputes are their own field, governed by the Anticybersquatting Consumer Protection Act and by the UDRP process, and they turn on questions of bad faith and confusing similarity that do not map neatly onto ordinary infringement law.
We have litigated ACPA claims through appeal, including a case in which the Eleventh Circuit addressed domain names resembling a registered mark.
Trade Secrets
Trade secret disputes usually arrive fast and hostile: a departing employee, a former franchisee, a business partner who left with the customer list. They frequently begin with an emergency motion, which means the first seventy two hours matter more than the next seven months.
We handle claims under the Defend Trade Secrets Act and the Florida Uniform Trade Secrets Act, including the injunction practice that comes with them, and including trade secret claims that arise inside franchise relationships. We have represented both individuals and companies in trade secret litigation, on both sides of it, and we are litigating trade secret claims now.
Online Marketplace and Platform Disputes
Selling through a major online marketplace creates a category of dispute that did not exist twenty years ago. Listings get removed on a complaint the seller never sees. Accounts get suspended. An intellectual property claim filed through a platform's internal process can shut down a business before any court is involved.
We have brought claims arising from marketplace listing and account disputes in federal court, including against a major online retailer. If your business depends on a platform and the platform has acted on someone else's complaint, the practical question is usually how fast you can get in front of a judge.
Intellectual Property Inside Franchise Systems
The firm's franchise practice and its intellectual property practice overlap constantly, because a franchise agreement is at bottom a trademark license. Termination disputes routinely include claims that a former franchisee continued using the marks. Enforcement letters get used as leverage in disputes that are really about something else.
We have litigated trademark counts inside franchise disputes at the trial level and on appeal, and we understand how the intellectual property claim is functioning in the larger negotiation. Read more about our franchise practice.
Representative Matters
Represented the plaintiff in a federal action against a major online retailer arising from marketplace listings.
Represented the defendants and counterclaimants in a trademark action brought by a national health insurance association.
Represented the appellant in an Anticybersquatting Consumer Protection Act appeal in the Eleventh Circuit involving domain names resembling a registered mark.
Represented an international consumer products company in trademark and Lanham Act disputes in the United States District Court for the Southern District of Florida and in Florida circuit courts.