People > Office: Grand Rapids

Staci is a registered patent attorney with an engineering background, who provides a full range of intellectual property services, including trademark, copyright, and patent clearance, procurement, licensing, and enforcement; anti-counterfeiting; IP portfolio and brand management; startup consulting; IP transactions and technology transfers; and IP due diligence. She serves as co-chair of the firm’s Intellectual Property Practice Team.

Serving a diverse client group including Fortune 100 companies, SMEs, start-ups, and solo entrepreneurs, including a variety of well-known and famous brands, Staci maintains a business-minded, client-centric, holistic, and worldwide approach to intellectual property. Staci understands that clients invest in intellectual property in order to protect and improve their marketplace position, and she works to strategically compile intellectual property portfolios, unique to the client, that not only boast valuable brick-and-mortar intellectual property rights, but that also allow such intellectual property rights to be commercialized, enforced, and leveraged as revenue-generating and market-safeguarding tools.

Staci advises clients that operate in the mechanical, electro-mechanical, and material engineering arts and has prepared and prosecuted utility patent applications in a variety of technology areas including: OEM and aftermarket automotive systems, components, and control strategies for conventional (ICE) vehicles, hybrid electric vehicles (HEV), plug-in hybrid electric vehicles (PHEV) and battery electric vehicles (BEV); HVAC systems; aerospace systems; energy absorption devices; structural barriers and traffic management systems; coastline restoration products and apparatuses; industrial equipment; tooling for manufacturing systems; manufacturing systems and processes; automation systems; robotic components; medical devices; building products; consumer goods; and sporting goods and equipment.

Staci also assists clients in a broad range of market sectors, to procure and enforce design patent and trade dress rights for the ornamental characteristics embodied in, or applied to, their respective products including, unique product configurations; unique product ornamentation; ornamental product packaging; computer-generated icons; and static, dynamic, and animated graphical user interfaces (GUIs).
Staci attends to all aspects of intellectual property in the corporate and commercial contexts including IP due diligence and the evaluation of the strength and breadth of IP portfolios in the context of commercial and technology transactions, including joint ventures. Staci also routinely structures, drafts, negotiates, and advises in commercial and transactional contexts on a variety of technology agreements including joint development agreements, technology research agreements, collaboration agreements, technology supply agreements, and technology licensing and ownership agreements with regard to traditional IP in a variety of technological sectors, as well as, software, SaaS, PaaS, and the like.

Moreover, Staci routinely counsel’s clients in domestic and international trademark, trade dress, unfair competition, false advertising, and domain name matters including the selection and adoption of trademarks, the management and prosecution of trademark portfolios, and the worldwide enforcement of trademark rights related to traditional brand management strategies, anti-counterfeiting, and cybersquatting. Staci also represents clients in trademark opposition, cancellation, and appeal proceedings before the Trademark Trial and Appeal Board (TTAB) and coordinates such matters with foreign counsel internationally.

Staci has also represented clients in intellectual property litigation, enforcement matters, and proceedings before the Trademark Trial and Appeal Board (TTAB), the International Trade Commission (ITC), Copyright Claims Board (CCB), Uniform Domain Dispute Resolution (UDRP) administrative bodies, and United States courts.