Worldwide Chain of Title Services
Merger
Asset Purchase
Name Change
Conversion
Address Change
- With over 150 years of combined experience, Fishman Stewart has the knowledge and established network of representatives worldwide required to update intellectual property (“IP”) ownership in nearly 200 jurisdictions.
- The Chain Gain® logic engine, the only software system dedicated solely to updating IP ownership, synthesizes the ever-changing legal and procedural worldwide requirements for updating IP ownership.
- As the exclusive licensee of the Chain Gain® logic engine, Fishman Stewart has the unprecedented ability to orchestrate IP ownership updates more efficiently and cost effectively than ever before possible.
- To avoid loss of IP rights, IP ownership must be updated as soon as possible after the close of a transaction in much the same way an updated deed to real estate must be timely recorded.
Protection
Enforce your patents, trademarks, and copyrights worldwide by keeping chain of title current.
Mergers & Acquisitions
Updating chain of title for an IP portfolio following an acquisition or divestiture is a complex, expensive, and often overlooked necessity. Chain Gain removes the errors, cost overruns, and delays ordinarily experienced with this process.
Company Name/Address Changes
When you move to a new home or get married, you update your personal information. The same thing must be done with your IP portfolio. Chain Gain provides a simple, cost-effective way to keep your global IP portfolio up to date.
- Company name change
- Change of address
- Conversion (e.g., Inc to LLC)
Chain of Title
All organizations own intellectual property (“IP”) and many organizations have obtained trademark registrations, copyright registrations and patent certificates to protect their IP with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, the U.S. Copyright Office, and corresponding intellectual property offices in other jurisdictions around the world.
When an organization undergoes a merger, a name change, an asset purchase, or other transaction, ownership of the organization’s IP oftentimes changes hands. As a result, ownership records of the organization’s IP registrations and certificates in the IP offices of relevant jurisdictions worldwide must be updated to reflect the new owner.
PITFALLS OF NOT UPDATING CHAIN OF TITLE
These registrations and certificates are the equivalent of real estate deeds. However, many do not appreciate that a break in the chain of ownership of an IP asset can be just as fatal to its value as the failure to update the chain of ownership following the sale of real estate. Indeed, delays in updating this “chain of title,” or the failure to do so altogether, may result in loss of IP rights or at least prove to be very costly to correct later. Accordingly, chain of title of IP assets must be updated as soon as possible after the close of the transaction in much the same way that an updated deed to real estate must be timely recorded.
WHY FISHMAN STEWART
Fishman Stewart attorneys and other professionals have over 150 years of combined experience updating chain of title of IP assets with IP offices of approximately 200 jurisdictions worldwide. In addition, Fishman Stewart has a decades-established network of legal professionals located in these jurisdictions with similar expertise in updating chain of title of IP assets. Unlike other IP firms that sporadically perform chain of title work in a handful of countries, for decades Fishman Stewart has continuously handled a multitude of chain of title projects involving tens of thousands of IP registrations and certificates on worldwide basis.
CHAIN GAIN® Logic Engine
You may have experienced or heard that updating chain of title of IP assets is complex, document intensive, and expensive. The complexities, document requirements, and expense result from the ever-changing requirements for recording chain of title documents associated with each type of transaction in each of the approximately 200 jurisdictions in which IP ownership records can be updated. They also result from the ever-changing and increasing fee schedules of foreign IP offices and legal professionals in those jurisdictions.
To simplify the complexities of updating chain of title and perform chain of title work efficiently and cost effectively, Fishman Stewart utilizes proprietary software that synthesizes these ever-changing legal and procedural worldwide requirements and fee schedules.
This “logic engine,” developed by Chain Gain LLC, provides Fishman Stewart with the unprecedented ability to orchestrate and execute chain of title projects worldwide more efficiently and more cost effectively than ever before possible, and with greater accuracy, providing substantial value to IP owners and protection of their valuable IP assets. Moreover, with the logic engine cost calculator, Fishman Stewart can provide IP owners with immediate quotes to record a change in asset status for thousands of such assets all around the world, quotes that historically took weeks and substantial money to provide.
Chain Gain’s proprietary logic engine is only available through Fishman Stewart, the exclusive licensee of the of this unparalleled software.
Substantive legal issues such as a break in the chain fall outside of the capabilities of the CHAIN GAIN® logic engine, but can be separately addressed by the highly experienced attorneys of Fishman Stewart or using your preferred legal provider.
To learn more about the importance of updating chain of title of IP assets and the pitfalls of not doing so in a timely manner, download our white paper Updating Intellectual Property Chain of Title HERE.
