LaMorte & Associates is a law firm located in Yardley, Pennsylvania that specializes solely in representing both individuals and manufacturing companies in matters of intellectual property both domestically and internationally.
We represent a wide variety of manufacturing companies and inventors throughout the country. LaMorte & Associates provides quality services that are a fraction of the cost of intellectual property law firms located in major metropolitan areas. In most cases, our clients have reduced their legal costs by over 50% when they began using our law firm.
The attorneys at LaMorte & Associates have written and prosecuted hundreds of patents for inventions in most all areas of mechanical engineering, electrical engineering, bio-medical engineering and computer science. The clients of our firm range from individual inventors to many Fortune 500 companies.
The quality of our service and our commitment to excellence are both summarized in our service commitment promise.
SERVICE COMMITMENT PROMISE
LaMorte & Associates promises to provide the highest quality legal services to our clients. Your company's business is very important to us, and we make every attempt to customize our services to specifically match the needs of your company. As an example of how LaMorte & Associates attempts to better serve our clients, listed below are the ten most common complaints that companies have about patent law firms, and the solutions used by LaMorte & Associates to eliminate these complaints from our practice.
| Respect | Peripheral Billing | Availability of Attorneys | Communications | Understanding The Technology |
| Cost of Preparing A Patent | Quality | Billings | Credit | Hourly Rate |
The single largest complaint that companies have about law firms in general is a perceived lack of respect. Telephone calls are often never returned, requests for information go unanswered for days, and more time is spent speaking to the attorney's secretary than to the attorney.
At LaMorte & Associates matters of respect are given the highest priority. If an attorney is in the office and is not with another client, that attorney will take your call. Your call is more important than any other business at hand. If the attorney is not in the office, the attorney will return your call as soon as that attorney is available.
Furthermore, all work given to LaMorte & Associates by your company will be assigned an estimated fee and date of completion. As such, your company will never have to guess about how much services will cost or when a given task will be completed.
The second most cited complaint about patent law firms is excessive peripheral billings. Many law firms engage in the practice of billing peripheral matters. For example, it is common for many law firms to bill clients for postage, speaking to their clients on the telephone or forwarding a received correspondence to a client. Many firms even have billing minimums of .25 hours, so even if a person at your company calls the attorney for a quick ten second question, your company gets billed for .25 hours of the attorney's time.
At LaMorte & Associates there are no peripheral billings. There are no charges for postage. There are no charges for copies. There is no billing minimum. Lastly, there is never a charge for speaking to our clients on the telephone, regardless of the length of the telephone conversation. This policy alone results in thousands of dollars in savings each year for our clients. Open communications with our clients is always encouraged and is always free.
Few things are more frustrating to a company than needing immediate advice and not being able to contact their attorney. The third most commonly cited complaint about patent law firms is the inaccessibility of the lawyers when they are needed.
At LaMorte & Associates your attorney will always be made available if an emergency arises. If an attorney is out of the office, you can leave a message on his/her voicemail and that attorney will check in for messages and return any urgent calls.
The attorneys at LaMorte & Associates will also always be available to visit your company. If you need an attorney for a meeting or to meet inventors, we will be happy to come to your offices. No time is billed for travel if an attorney travels to your office for the purposes of meeting inventors and reviewing new technologies.
The fourth most cited complaint about patent law firms is poor communications. With many law firms, the clients only hear from their attorneys when a bill is past due. Obtaining a patent or trademark is a long process that includes many steps. There are many points where a client needs to be counseled on options.
At LaMorte & Associates an open dialogue is maintained with our clients throughout the process of obtaining a patent or trademark. A copy of every correspondence received from the Patent & Trademark Office will be sent to the client along with a straightforward explanation of the correspondence and an explanation of what courses of action are available. The correspondences sent to a client provide that client with a copy of every paper that is present in the attorney's file. No secrets are kept and no unanticipated bill will ever be received by a client.
5. UNDERSTANDING THE TECHNOLOGY
The fifth most cited complaint about patent law firms is that the attorneys do not understand the technologies under development. Patents are often highly technical in nature. Many law firms use patent attorneys that do not have a good technical background. As such, the employees of your company often have to spend dozens of hours providing the attorney with explanations and diagrams of the invention.
At LaMorte & Associates we understand a wide range of complex technologies. However, if an attorney needs to conduct technical research in order to fully understand an invention, that research is done by the attorney at no cost to the client. The employees of your company are never asked to write a patent with the attorney. If questions about an invention exist, of course, those questions will be asked of the inventor. However, it is understood that your employees' time is valuable and it will never be needlessly wasted.
The sixth most cited complaint about patent law firms is the legal fees charged in obtaining a patent. Many companies do not protect all of the technologies they develop because of legal costs.
At LaMorte & Associates our fees are typically 30%-50% lower than those of large patent law firms. As a result, your company can obtain 30%-50% more patents for the same legal fees. For a full listing of our fees, please go to our fee page.
The seventh most cited complaint about patent law firms is the quality of the work. A patent is the ownership papers for a given technology. Obtaining a patent is not always difficult. However, obtaining a patent that fully covers the scope of a new technology and will stand up to attack from competitors is always difficult.
At LaMorte & Associates we guarantee our work. If your company is ever dissatisfied with the quality of a patent prepared and your company decides to use another law firm to prepare that patent, no fee will be charged. Preparing patent applications is the primary work of LaMorte & Associates and great pride is taken in our work. Every patent prepared is written for the sole purpose of protecting the technologies developed by your company to the fullest extent of the law.
Often a patent application is required to be changed by the Patent Office before it will be allowed. Law firms often change the patent application to obtain the patent even though the changes leave the technology open for use by competitors. At LaMorte & Associates it is understood that just obtaining a patent is not the goal. The goal is to protect the technologies developed by your company from use by competitors. All efforts are directed at protecting the technologies, not just obtaining the patent.
The eighth most cited complaint about patent law firms is the reasonability of billings. When a company receives a bill from a law firm, there is little they can do but pay the bill. There is typically no audit procedure available by which the bill can be questioned.
At LaMorte & Associates, the attorney's time sheets for each client are always available to that client. Furthermore, all bills are highly detailed explaining exactly what work was done and how long that work took to accomplish. When it comes to bills, the client is always right. If, after an explanation, your company believes a given bill is excessive, that bill will be adjusted to an amount deemed appropriate by your company. Your company is always trusted to be fair.
The ninth most cited complaint about patent law firms is the inflexibility of the payment schedules. Often a company does not anticipate the cost of legal services into its operating budget. It is hard for many companies to anticipate what new technologies they may develop in the coming year. As a result, companies often require legal services that are in excess of the money available to immediately pay for those legal services.
At LaMorte & Associates, credit towards legal services is freely given to any client that has a good payment history. Balances are then either delayed to a subsequent fiscal period or broken into payments for the client's convenience.
The tenth and last most widely cited complaint about patent law firms is the hourly rate charged by the experienced attorneys. A large amount of work done for companies by their attorneys are done at an hourly rate. The average hourly billing rate of an experienced patent attorney in many cities is over $400.00/hr.
At LaMorte & Associates, the hourly rate is only $195.00/hr. This represents a 50% savings in legal costs.
OUR PROMISE
The attorneys at LaMorte & Associates herein promise to make every effort to better serve you, our client. The firm is committed to providing the highest quality work and reliable service at reasonable rates. All our clients are treated the way we like to be treated, with the utmost respect and fairness. It is hoped that we can work together to build a lasting business relationship.
EMAIL: mail@uspatlaw.com
