Cyberlaw Clinic
Services offered: The Clinic maintains an active practice in intellectual property advising, including risk assessment, and has drafted a wide range of transactional documents that relate to IP rights (including license agreements and other documents concerning transfers of intellectual property).
Public Patent Foundation
Services offered: Reexaminations of patents. Pre-litigation counseling, representation and negotiation. Representing defendants in patent litigation. Patent-related only. (No trademark or copyright services.) No patent applications or prosecution.
Eligibility criteria: Economically disadvantaged businesses (including sole proprietors, partnerships, corporations or other entities) accused of infringing dubious patents.
Regions covered: Nationwide in U.S.A.
Fees charged: Clients are expected to pay costs, but normally not attorney fees.
Public Interest Intellectual Property Advisors, Inc. (PIIPA)
Services offered: PIIPA is the global non-profit resource for developing countries and public interest organizations seeking expertise in intellectual property matters to promote health, agriculture, biodiversity, science, culture, and the environment.
Eligibility criteria: Assists governments of developing countries, non-profit organizations in developing countries, and non-profit organizations in developed countries that help developing countries.
Regions covered: All developing countries
Fees charged: None
Patent, Trademark & Copyright Section
Services offered: Amicus briefs
Contact: Ralph P. Albrecht, Chair
(202) 216-8166
Eligibility criteria: No formal criteria
Regions covered: Nationwide in U.S.A.
Fees charged: None
Patent Pro Bono Florida
Services offered: A statewide program of the Arts & Business Council of Miami and Dade Legal Aid to provide under-resourced inventors with pro bono patent attorneys.
International Trademark Association
Services offered: Through its Pro Bono Committee, INTA has established the Trademark Clearinghouse pilot program to bolster the protection of intellectual property by matching eligible clients facing trademark issues with INTA member attorneys so that legal services can be provided free of charge.
The Clearinghouse is intended to serve low-income individuals and/or directors of nonprofit or charitable organizations with low operating budgets (1) who might otherwise not know where to turn or (2) who don’t have access to legal assistance in the area of trademarks. This clearinghouse is the only one currently in existence that is dedicated primarily to trademarks.
Electronic Frontier Foundation
Services offered: Litigation defense, with concentration on “impact litigation”, i.e., precedent setting cases; nationwide referrals to attorneys in technology cases.
Eligibility criteria: No formal criteria
Regions covered: Nationwide in U.S.A.
Fees charged: None
Law School Clinic Certification Program
Services offered: This program allows applicants to obtain pro bono legal assistance in both patent and trademark matters while allowing law students enrolled in a participating law school’s clinic program to practice intellectual property law before the USPTO under the strict guidance of a law school faculty clinic supervisor.
Patent Pro Bono Program
Services offered: A nationwide network of independently operated academic and nonprofit organizations that endeavor to match volunteer patent practitioners with financially under-resourced inventors seeking patent protection.
Letter Supporting CASE Act
IIPSJ sends a letter to Congressman Jefferies supporting passage of the CASE Act.
The Institute for Intellectual Property and Social Justice (IIPSJ) hereby submits the following comments in support of passage of the Copyright Alternative in Small-Claims Enforcement Act of 2019 (HR 2426). IIPSJ was established to address the social justice implications of intellectual property law and policy both domestically and globally. IIPSJ’s work ranges broadly, and includes the scholarly examination of intellectual property law from the social justice perspective; advocacy for social justice-cognizant interpretation, application, and revision of the intellectual property law; efforts to increase the diversity of the intellectual property legal bar; and programs to empower historically and currently disadvantaged and marginalized communities through the development, protection, use, and exploitation of intellectual property.
Click here to read full letter.