Chelsea P. Everson

Chelsea is a member of Varnum’s Intellectual Property Team. She has a wide range of experience in patent prosecution, trademark and copyright protection, trade secret law and preparation and review of IP agreements. She has prepared and prosecuted numerous domestic and foreign utility patent applications within the biological, chemical, and mechanical arts, including technology areas covering chemical compositions, polymers science, biomedical devices and associated methods, and diagnostic applications including cell-free nucleic acids, extracellular vesicles, liquid biopsy, blood collection tubes and cancer screenings. She regularly prepares prior art searches, freedom-to-operate analyses and infringement and invalidity opinions. Chelsea is experienced in intellectual property litigation involving patent and trademark infringement, trade secret misappropriation and unfair competition.

Chelsea also assists clients in domestic and international trademark matters, from inception of a mark to registration. Chelsea provides strategic counsel on the availability and adoption of trademarks, regularly performing clearance searches, as well as the management and enforcement of trademark portfolios in the United States and abroad. She also helps conduct due diligence regarding trademark assets in conjunction with mergers, acquisitions, and other changes of ownership. Moreover, Chelsea routinely represents clients in cancellation and opposition proceedings before the United States Patent and Trademark Office’s Trademark Trial and Appeal Board (TTAB).

Chelsea regularly works with writers, artists, photographers, and other creatives on copyright matters, including the filing of copyright registrations and the preparation of clearance reports and fair use analyses. Furthermore, Chelsea has experience in copyright protection, having brought numerous infringement and declaration of noninfringement claims to the Copyright Claims Board (CCB), a three-member tribunal within the Copyright Office that provides an efficient option to her clients, resolving copyright disputes outside of federal court.

In addition to her practice, Chelsea is an Adjunct Professor of Law and Co-Director of the Arts & and Entertainment Law Clinic at the University of Detroit Mercy College of Law, providing pro bono legal services to musicians, independent film makers, writers, artists, and the like. During law school, Chelsea served an extensive, 10-week externship with the USPTO’s Patent Experience Extern Program and Patent Training Academy at the Elijah J. McCoy Midwest Regional U.S. Patent and Trademark Office. She worked alongside patent examiners in a unit that oversees various biotech, chemical and pharmaceutical technologies to review patent applications for grant consideration and conducted prior art searches. She also delivered presentations on patent and trademark matters to small business owners and aspiring inventors at USPTO informational events.