Fross Zelnick Lehrman & Zissu, P.C.

At Fross Zelnick, we secure and defend our clients’ most valuable assets—their brands, designs, and content.

• • • Our trademark practice is unmatched. After five decades, we’ve developed a singular trademark practice serving clients in the United States and around the world. We’ve handled every type of trademark issue and dispute, multiple times for multiple companies in multiple jurisdictions, from the simplest registration to the thorniest cross-jurisdictional enforcement action.
    • We boast top-tier copyright experience, with a special emphasis on defending creative works, including character rights, branding assets, and product design. For decades we’ve assisted clients as they navigate the consequences of new technological frontiers – most recently, digital, and virtual performance rights and blockchain-based technologies.
    • Our patent practice focuses exclusively on design patents, with particular expertise in developing multi-pronged strategies combining patent, trademark, and copyright law to protect our clients’ prized works.

The breadth and depth of our practice has attracted a wide range of clients, from celebrated brands, industry leaders, and renowned content providers to disruptive startups and regional companies, all of whom rely on us to protect their unique properties at home and around the world. Many of the largest corporate law firms rely on our advice for unique or hard-to-handle U.S. and international issues.

Our capabilities include:

Top-Tier IP Litigation
We are a renowned trademark and copyright litigation firm, with a reputation for both aggressive advocacy in court and quick, favorable settlements out of court. We know how to fight and win—whether in our backyard or in the most intractable foreign jurisdictions.

Strategic and Nuanced Registration Strategies
We register trademarks, copyrights, and design patents with our clients’ business goals in mind. Our cross-discipline expertise means we leverage multiple legal strategies to shore up strong protections for the most hard-to-defend assets. We obtain rights that ward off newcomers and stand up in court. We are one of the most prolific filers of U.S. trademark applications, and our expertise in the finer points of U.S. trademark prosecution is second to none.

Global Portfolio Management
With our unparalleled in-house knowledge of international IP law, we provide unrivaled advice for global portfolio management, litigations, and transactions around the globe. Our dynamic, carefully selected network of foreign counsel helps us guide U.S. and foreign clients alike as they identify, protect, and defend their rights under copyright, trademark, trade dress, design patent, domain name, and related laws worldwide. Our international capabilities are just as robust as our local prowess.

Deal Expertise
Whether a client is buying or selling an entire business or a portion of an intellectual property portfolio, we’ve seen it before—and can advise on how to structure the deal to fit the client’s goals. We conduct due diligence reviews for mergers, acquisitions, and other corporate ventures, and formulate efficient worldwide strategies to record the corporate changes against their clients’ IP registrations. Many of the country’s premier M&A attorneys partner with us on the IP components of larger transactions.

Services on the Cutting Edge
Thanks to our more than 50-year legacy, we’ve been witness to the birth and evolution of nearly every technology that’s central to the modern economy. From in-the-trenches Uniform Dispute Resolution Proceeding litigations against cybersquatters, to the rapidly changing intersection of IP rights and blockchain innovations like NFTs, to educating trademark offices around the world on new technological intersections, we’re helping clients successfully steer through uncharted waters and prepare for what’s to come.

Protection of Celebrities and Cherished Characters
From Batman to Harry Potter, we protect famous characters through sophisticated copyright and trademark protection strategies and enforcement against infringers. We’ve also retrieved numerous infringing trademarks and domain names for celebrities and litigate high-profile, right-of-publicity cases involving the unauthorized use of well-known names and likenesses, all within a quickly evolving legal landscape.

Combating Counterfeiting
We’ve developed sophisticated and cost-effective enforcement programs for preventing the importation, sale, and distribution of infringing or counterfeit products. Our experience is capacious, including apparel, footwear, cosmetics, jewelry, and luxury goods products. Included in these programs is the recordal of relevant intellectual property rights with Customs in the United States and abroad.