You invented it. You funded the development. But if you performed that work under a federal contract or with federal research dollars, the government may have more rights to your invention than you realize and recovering them after the fact is expensive, if it's possible at all.

Effectus helps defense contractors, dual-use tech companies, and SBIR/STTR awardees protect patent rights before they are negotiated away, misunderstood in a contract, or lost to a Bayh-Dole compliance failure. Our patent practice is led by a USPTO-registered practitioner with litigation experience before the Patent Trial and Appeal Board and the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit.

We handle the full patent lifecycle: prosecution across technology areas including software, AI-enabled systems, pharmaceuticals, and defense-related platforms; PTAB inter partes review proceedings; Federal Circuit appellate work; freedom-to-operate and patentability analysis; and patent portfolio strategy for contractors operating in regulated environments. We advise on government license rights under FAR 52.227-11, Bayh-Dole compliance for federally funded research including AI development, and § 101 patent eligibility counseling for defense tech companies.

For dual-use technology companies, we also address the patent prosecution issues that keep export control counsel up at night: foreign filing license requirements, export control implications of public disclosure, and secrecy order exposure under 35 U.S.C. § 181.