Prior to joining Kligler & Associates team, our attorneys held various positions across the Israeli tech Industry. Their experience from the front of the industry, forms the basis for the value they bring to our clients. U.S. and Israeli advocate, Alon Hilu, discusses his experience, and describes how it flows into his work at the firm.
Alonbegan his professional journey as a lawyer with an Israeli IP law firm, before transitioning into the world of Deep Tech as in-house counsel. Alon served as General Counsel for a software developer – Voltaire Ltd., who were clients of Kligler. Voltaire was acquired by Mellanox – also a Kligler client, where Alon become IP manager. (Mellanox has since been acquired itself by Nvidia, which remains one of Kligler’s largest clients.) In 2016, Kligler was searching for an attorney to manage the firm’s growing practice, and Alon was the natural choice – of course with the consent of Mellanox.
IP managers for even medium-sized businesses can often review hundreds of potential inventions each year, and they must know how to select those which will have significant business value for the company. Alon notes, “In order to evaluate the potential business benefit of a patent application, you must ask the inventor several questions, which Danny [Kligler] helped me to create for our inventors to answer. The first question is: Do we or can we currently use this invention in our products? And it’s not just whether it’s currently being used, but if it’s a part of the company’s roadmap – are we going to use it in the near future, or further down the road? If it’s not a part of the business at all, even if it’s an excellent invention, we won’t file an application.”
“If the answer to the first question is yes, then the second question is: Will infringement of this invention be visible? You might have a wonderful invention, but it’s possible that no one will be able to figure out whether your competitor is using it. In this case, your patent may have no actual meaning, because you will never be able to enforce it.”
We still use these questions for the inventors because we understand that a patent is really not just technological. Rather, it is a strategic business and marketing tool to make the company more profitable and strengthen its competitive edge. My work with Danny helped me to understand this.”
“I think that a good patent attorney, in a sense, is like a writer. A good patent application tells the story of the invention, giving life to the dry technical details. In some ways, the patent attorney has to foresee the future, and to describe aspects of the clients’ inventions that are not yet born, because the technology is still in early stages of development. When these aspects do come to life, the patent claims will cover them, and the patent can become extremely valuable. So, when a patent attorney writes a patent application, he has to perform this magic, he must be able to foresee any future applications or potential infringements of the patent, and this is an area in which Kligler & Associates truly excels.”
“When choosing a patent attorney, first it is important to choose one with knowledge of the specific technology you’re handling and, secondly, one with relevant experience. So, it’s a combination of being a patent attorney, and also a lawyer – and that’s what Danny [Kligler] is. Usually, these are two different professions: there are patent attorneys who come from the field of technological background, and there are lawyers like me, who in many cases have no technical background whatsoever. This unique combination of a person who can deal with both aspects of the profession is a key benefit that we provide to our clients.”
“Another point that makes Kligler & Associates so special is that we work equally comfortably and confidently with individual inventors, small startups, medium-sized companies, and huge multinational companies with offices around the globe. From my personal experience, I can say that my whole professional journey was accompanied by this very firm. Kligler knows how to give excellent service both to the smaller companies and also to the huge multinationals, at every step along the journey. I can testify personally that at every stage, Kligler made me feel that I was the firm’s most important client. I think that this is the reason that so many companies, as they grow bigger and bigger, continue using the services of Kligler & Associates.”
