Richard J. McKenna is an intellectual property lawyer with over 25 years of experience assisting clients in a broad range of intellectual property matters. Mr. McKenna has extensive experience counseling clients in the selection, adoption, use and enforcement of trademarks.
His experience is focused on trademark selection and registration, enforcement, advertising review, and protection of trade dress and licensing of these assets. Mr. McKenna has also represented several clients in domain name disputes.
As a licensed patent attorney, he regularly counsels clients in the prosecution of U.S. and foreign patents, product clearance studies, potential patent infringement analysis, and developing effective worldwide intellectual protection strategies.
Based upon his technical background, Mr. McKenna has addressed patent issues in material science and mechanical arts and in the areas of medical devices, food products and processing, automotive products, office furniture, power tools, consumer products and other industrial products.
With his qualifications and experience in both the trademark and patent fields, Mr. McKenna is uniquely qualified to counsel clients on the interrelation between utility patent, design patent, trademark and trade dress law and to develop effective strategies for the protection of non-functional, aesthetic design elements.
The recent Apple v. Samsungsmartphone litigation has demonstrated the importance of an effective, coordinated, overlapping design patent and trademark/trade dress protection strategy.
Education :
Mr. McKenna graduated from the University of Michigan (B.S., materials and metallurgical engineering, 1985) and Case Western Reserve University School of Law (J.D., cum laude, 1988), where he served as editor of the Case Western Reserve University Journal of International Law.
Admissions and Professional Memberships :
Mr. McKenna is admitted to practice in Michigan, Wisconsin and before the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office. He is active in the International Trademark Association and a member of the American Bar Association and its Patent, Trademark and Copyright Section and American Intellectual Property Law Association.
Representative Matters :
- Foley represented Chr. Hansen AS in its 2016 acquisition of Guardian Food Technologies, LLC and Nutrition Physiology Holdings, LLC for $185 million.
- Our client manufactures and develops unique, innovative food products and wanted to introduce a unique product to compete in the marketplace against a well established, highly successful consumer food product.
- Through proactive involvement in the product development process, Foley was able to counsel the client and assist in the development of a visually distinctive, innovative food product which successfully competes in the marketplace against the established, competitive product, avoids the patent and trademark protections for the competitor’s product, and is entitled to its own proprietary patent, design and trademark rights.
- Foley & Lardner represented Reebok International, Ltd in a trademark infringement action filed in US District Court by Fuel Clothing Company. Foley negotiated a successful resolution of the matter following a multi-day, contentious, Court approved arbitration.
- By actively pursuing arbitration very early in the proceeding, the dispute was promptly settled, before the parties were forced to spend large sums of money and time on discovery and motion practice.
- Represented Howard Johnson’s Enterprises, Inc., a fertilizer company, in the sale of its business, and the sale of real estate by an affiliate, to a subsidiary of Central Garden & Pet Company, a publicly traded company (CENT on NASDAQ).
- After advising a U.S.-based pharmaceutical waste consulting firm from its inception on a variety of commercial matters (including consulting agreements and licensing arrangements), Foley represented the firm in its sale to a leading provider of comprehensive waste and environmental services in North America.
Cost
Rate : $$$