Advanced Materials

Common Intellectual Property Challenges

The advanced materials sector continues to reshape manufacturing, aerospace, healthcare, electronics, and automotive design. Innovations in polymers, ceramics, resins, and composites offer measurable improvements in strength, weight, conductivity, and cost efficiency. However, these opportunities also pose a growing web of intellectual property risks.

Startups to large multinational companies face increased intellectual property risks tied to overlapping patents, misappropriated trade secrets, and evolving global standards. As more companies embed AI and automation into material design or rely on proprietary data for formulation, protecting these innovations becomes more complicated. Cybersecurity threats, employee mobility, and inconsistent enforcement across jurisdictions only raise the stakes. Without a sound intellectual property strategy, businesses risk losing competitive advantages, facing infringement claims, or leaving revenue on the table.

How We Can Help

Brooks Kushman collaborates with innovators of advanced materials to ensure their technologies are adequately protected and enforceable. We assist at every stage—from invention disclosures and patent drafting to licensing, litigation, and post-grant proceedings. Our advanced materials intellectual property attorneys understand the scientific and commercial realities shaping this field and tailor strategies that match your goals and technical landscape.

Whether you’re scaling a materials startup or managing an in-house legal department for a multinational corporation, we provide clarity and execution. We draft robust patents, enforce rights against infringers, and structure intellectual property portfolios to align with business objectives and investor expectations.

Why Partner With Us?

Brooks Kushman has represented clients in the intellectual property space for over four decades, managing more than 15,000 trademarks and filing over 11,000 patent applications in the last five years alone. Our advanced materials intellectual property lawyers bring a unique combination of legal expertise and scientific acumen that sets us apart in the intellectual property field.

We have hands-on experience with materials science, chemistry, and manufacturing processes across various industries, enabling our team to communicate effectively with your R&D and engineering teams. Our attorneys work closely with inventors, university technology transfer offices, and corporate legal teams to develop effective protection strategies—whether that involves domestic filings, international patent prosecution, or defending against infringement claims.

Key IP Considerations for Advanced Materials

Multidisciplinary Complexity

Innovations in advanced materials (e.g., composites, nanomaterials, high-performance polymers, alloys) often span multiple scientific disciplines like chemistry, materials science, physics, and engineering. This overlap can result in complex inventions that require legal support and guidance from attorneys with deep technical expertise and cross-functional understanding of the material and its use. Our attorneys combine strong technical backgrounds with legal experience to protect inventions that cross multiple disciplines. We understand the challenges and opportunities that arise in protecting complex, material-based technologies.

Patent Eligibility and Claim Strategy

Many advanced material inventions involve novel formulations, structures, or processes that may be difficult to define or claim without overbreadth or indefiniteness issues. In this field, a successful patent strategy often requires protection for more than just the composition. We design layered claims that cover structure, function, method of manufacture, and use, providing strong and adaptable protection as your technology evolves.

Trade Secrets vs Patent Protection

Some companies choose to protect proprietary material formulations or manufacturing processes as trade secrets instead of patents to avoid any risk of public disclosure. We help clients evaluate the risks of public disclosure, the threat of reverse engineering, and long-term business goals to make the right decision. When trade secrets are the better option, we assist in implementing the proper controls and agreements to secure them.

Freedom to Operate and Risk Analysis

The advanced materials space is highly competitive, especially in industries like aerospace, automotive, and electronics, with many overlapping patents in play. We conduct thorough freedom-to-operate (FTO) analyses and patent landscape reviews to help you reduce risk and confidently move forward with product development and commercialization.

Lifecycle-Aligned IP Strategy

Materials are often integrated into larger systems such as batteries, medical devices, or aerospace components. We take a full-lifecycle approach to protection, considering how and where the material is used, how it is made, and how it connects to the broader product ecosystem. This may include layering patent protection across the supply chain, end use, and system integration. Protection strategies should align with how and where the material is used.

Global Protection Strategies

Many material innovations are commercialized internationally. We build filing strategies that reflect your business priorities and account for jurisdiction-specific requirements. Our experience includes managing global patent portfolios and coordinating closely with trusted foreign counsel in key markets. Variations in subject matter eligibility or patentability standards must be considered early.

Collaborations, Licensing, and Joint Development

University or research partnerships and industry collaborations are common in this space. We guide clients through IP ownership strategies, licensing negotiations, and joint development agreements to ensure their interests are protected while fostering innovation and growth.

Specialty Practice Areas

• Additives
• Biomaterials
• Ceramics
• Composites
• High value-added metals
• Pigments
• Polymers
• Resins

Our team at Brooks Kushman is here to help you secure and enforce your rights in advanced materials. Whether you’re developing new compounds, manufacturing techniques, or applications, we can guide you through every stage of the intellectual property process.