Automotive innovation now splits between the machine shop and the code base: suppliers improving components and processes on one side, ADAS features and software-defined-vehicle functions on the other, with electrification cutting across both. Each has its own patent playbook, and supplier economics make getting it right unusually consequential.
The supplier's position
Tier 1 and Tier 2 suppliers generate a huge share of automotive invention, and OEM development agreements complicate who owns it. Before filing, we review the contracts: what's background IP, what's foreground the customer can claim, and what improvements are genuinely yours to protect. Filed right, a supplier's portfolio becomes leverage in the next sourcing negotiation instead of a gift to the customer.
ADAS and the software-defined vehicle
Driver assistance, sensor fusion, over-the-air update architectures, and vehicle-to-everything communication are software inventions bolted to safety-critical hardware. They're valuable, crowded, and exposed to §101 rejections when drafted loosely. We claim the concrete technical behavior and keep coverage spread across the ECU, the sensor set, and the back end.
Electrification
Battery packs and their thermal management, power electronics, drive units, charging systems, and the manufacturing methods behind cells and packs. Much of this is classic mechanical and electrical drafting where an engineering background pays for itself.
Processes: patent or trade secret
Stamping, joining, coating, and assembly innovations often protect better as trade secrets when competitors can't reverse-engineer them from the part. We help sort what to file from what to lock down, plant by plant.
A note on geography: we serve the Midwest automotive corridor, including Michigan's supplier base, from our Wisconsin office – by video most days, in person when it counts.
What we handle
- Utility patents for components, systems, ADAS/SDV software, and EV technology
- Ownership and background-IP review of OEM development agreements before filing
- Freedom-to-operate before tooling and sourcing commitments
- Trade-secret programs for process know-how
- Portfolio strategy aligned to platform and program timelines