Near the sleepy town of Spangle south of Spokane, in a building across the road from a 3,000-acre cattle ranch, is the main office of Gregory I.P. Law, a one-person law firm owned and staffed by patent attorney Randy Gregory.


The bucolic setting might seem an unlikely spot to find a hub of patent law activity, but Gregory arguably is giving it that kind of stature.


Formerly a longtime partner at Spokanes Wells St. John PS, Gregory has more than 100 clients in 20 states and says his 3-year-old practice is growing fast enough that he soon may seek to add another patent attorney to help with the workload.


More than half of Gregorys practice currently involves patent work, with the rest of his focus being on trademarks and license agreements. He says he routinely charges $240 an hour for his services, and that more than 95 percent of the patent applications he writes and submits for clients are allowed by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office.


Every invention is different, Gregory says. I try to breathe life into each ones novelty and best position the invention to make sure readers of the patent have an appreciation of where current technology is in relation to solving that particular problem, he says.


Gregory now spends many hours working in his office four miles north of Spangle, in a canyon near Latah Creek, and offers no complaints about the relative isolation of the site. He also maintains a sparsely furnished residence north of Spokane Valley where he meets with many of his clients.


A patent attorney for more than 25 years, Gregory says he spent 21 of those years working for Wells St. John PS and its predecessor firms before breaking away to launch his own firm. He says whats now Wells St. John changed its name three times during his tenure there, and that he served several years as the firms president. He left the firm in 2003.


I wanted more freedom, and basically had a different philosophy on how I wanted to practice law, he says. An added factor, he says, was the hope of one day working his now 20-year-old son, Shane, into the practice. He says its premature to say if Shane will attend law school, but he does help in my work.


About 7 million U.S. patents and at least 30 million foreign patents are in effect today, says Gregory, whos spent much of his career helping inventors legally stake their claim on new inventions and discoveries.


Nearly every one of those patents had to be presented, usually in text and graphic form, to a patent examiner who decided whether the invention was novel enough to warrant legal protection to prevent others from copying it, says Gregory.


Although actual examples of a product, such as parts, photos, videos, and displays occasionally accompany patent applications, they are almost always on paper, underlying the importance of describing both the product and its uniqueness accurately, says Gregory.


Hence, the niche for patent attorneys.


Patent attorneysGregory estimates the number in the Spokane area at between 40 and 50are frequent intermediaries between inventors and the federal patent office. If that agency approves a patent, it basically grants the inventor the right to exclude others from producing the invention, as defined in the patent claim, for 20 years beyond the time the application is filed, he says.


Although the U.S. patent office typically categorizes patents as mechanical, electrical, chemical, or business methodology, the diversity of patents among those categories is almost endless.


Gregory has written patent applications for many types of products. They include electronic games, automobile fuel-system injectors, production equipment, cattle-monitoring equipment, pharmaceutical discoveries, and numerous business methods, many of which are software patents that are almost exclusively based on methodology, he says.


Business-methodology applications are almost always more time consuming than the other types of patents, and thus cost the client more, Gregory says. He says thats because the subject matter is generally more intangible, with the patent attorney often having to process and describe operational steps that are nonspecific in nature.


He says a typical patent application can be 20 to 50 pages long and can include from five to 20 drawings. That package might cost a client up to $10,000, with more complex applications ranging up to $20,000, he says. In contrast, business-methodology applications easily can range up to 150 pages, include 10 to 50 drawings, and cost the client as much as $75,000 or more, says Gregory.


Patents, patent searches


Clients do come and go, but what I see is mostly cases for clients with multiple proposals, he says, adding that many clients who need such work followed him when he left Wells St. John. Others now are requesting his services because of referrals from clients and referrals from other attorneys, he says.


One element of a patent attorneys job that can be requested or waived by the client is the patent search. That process, which cant be 100 percent inclusive because of the millions of patents on the market, is done to see if anyone else has done the same thing, Gregory says.


I do what my client requests, but in general I think it is good to do a patent search, he says.


Once Gregory writes a patent application, he shares the text and drawings with the inventor, who must sign a sworn statement that the product is his or hers and that the application accurately represents that product. Gregory says the language in the application is critical because the patent examiner, as well as any future judge or jury, must be able to read the information and know precisely what the product is.


Once the application is signed, its submitted along with a filing fee, which normally ranges from $500 to $2,000, to the patent office.


It takes about three years for U.S. patent examiners to allow a patent application, a little less time if the application is disallowed, and, if the application is allowed, the inventor is assessed another fee of about $1,000 to ensure that his new rights are recorded properly, says Gregory.


Finding differences between previous inventions and new proposals might be easier than one would think, he says.


If I write an application with complete lexicon, I can usually find a distinction (from previous inventions), he says. There might be 20 or more aspects about a product that make it unique. I can emphasize differences, features, methods, actions, or even novel uses.


In addition to patents, Gregory I.P. deals with trademarks and license agreements. Unlike patents that give constitutional protection to inventors for a 20-year period, trademarks are in effect indefinitely unless theyre abandoned, Gregory says.


He describes trademarks as implements of old common law that are used to identify goods from other goods. A simple example of the difference between patents and trademarks is that the formula to make Coca Cola is patented, and the logo advertising that product is a trademark.


Gregory often writes license agreements for clients after their patents have been allowed by the patent office. Gregory says its important to protect inventors when they transfer their patent rights for an invention to someone who wants to commercialize a product.


Born in Coeur dAlene and raised mostly in Pullman, Wash., Gregory feels his undergraduate studies at Washington State University, where he received a degree in mechanical engineering in 1974, helped prepare him for his career. His 1979 law degree and 1980 masters degree in business administration from the University of Washington, in Seattle, also have helped him in his work, but he says, The mechanical engineering school was more than sufficient to prepare me to pass the national patent exam.


Gregory began practicing as a patent attorney in Seattle in 1980 and moved in 1982 to Spokane, where he continued focusing his energies on that vocation.


Contact Rocky Wilson at (509) 344-1264 or via e-mail at rockyw@spokanejournal.com.