Myers Wolin Announces Patent Counsel Residency program to Fuel Partnerships with Tech Incubators and Accelerators and Assist Top Startups

MORRISTOWN, N.J., Sept. 10, 2014 /PRNewswire/ -- Securing intellectual property rights is increasingly critical to early stage companies.  Myers Wolin has partnered with the New York based Zahn Center and New York's Next Top Makers program to provide legal advisory services for some of the tri-state area's most innovative technology startups.

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The Zahn Center, based at the City College of New York, incubates and nurtures entrepreneurial initiatives to provide students, faculty, and staff with the tools they need to transform their ideas into sustainable ventures.

The Next Top Makers program, operated by New York City Economic Development Corporation, seeks to make a direct impact on the City of New York by bringing together big thinkers, innovators, entrepreneurs, manufacturers, and technologists to develop exciting new products and solutions that are designed in NYC, ready to be manufactured in NYC, or solve problems relevant to NYC.

Through these partnerships, Myers Wolin provides a variety of services, including:

• regular on-site office hours during which members can meet one on one with an experienced attorney,
• presentations focused on intellectual property issues facing startups, including the efficient allocation of resources, and
• reduced fee or pro bono services allowing early stage startups to protect their intellectual property rights while they pursue early stage investment.

Myers Wolin believes that this residency model provides a unique benefit to incubators and incubator members who have had only limited previous exposure to patent and trademark issues.

To support these partnerships, Myers Wolin has appointed Daniel Gross as Patent Counsel in Residence to assist incubator members with a variety of intellectual property matters.  Mr. Gross has extensive experience in patent and trademark law working with individual inventors, startups, and entrepreneurs including experience as both in-house and outside counsel.

Mr. Gross, who has training in both mechanical and electrical engineering, holds an engineering degree from Columbia University and a law degree from Fordham University School of Law.

"Protecting intellectual property is one of the most important tasks our entrepreneurs find themselves doing as they develop their startups," said Haytham Elhawary, former director of the Zahn Center, "and our partnership with Myers Wolin has been instrumental in helping the startups do that well.  Daniel has been an incredible resource, helping teams in every step of the process as they think about protecting their IP."

Through the new Patent Counsel Residency program, Myers Wolin hopes to reinforce its dedication to high quality, tailored, and cost effective intellectual property solutions for technology companies of all sizes.  "We are excited to fuel the entrepreneurial engine and function as both a partner and a resource to the startup community," said Harris Wolin, partner in the firm of Myers Wolin.  "By educating our future leaders and showing them how to strategically protect and position their intellectual property, we can enable them to use their IP assets to attract and facilitate investment, drive their business, and create a competitive advantage in the marketplace."

"We are tremendously grateful to the support of Myers Wolin.  Daniel Gross not only has coached many of our startups through the process of filing provisional patents, but also helped them better understand IP and the importance of considering related issues early on to avoid challenges in the future.  Providing this type of advising is an essential component of our incubator's value to our entrepreneurs," said Lindsay Siegel, director of the Zahn Center.

About Myers Wolin, LLC

Myers Wolin, LLC (www.myerswolin.com) is an intellectual property law firm that focuses on patents, trademarks, copyrights, licensing, and other IP-related matters.  MW assist clients from individual entrepreneurs to Fortune 100 companies with a full spectrum of legal services, including patent and trademark prosecution, counseling, IP due diligence, opinions, IP licensing and transaction, litigation, and commercial contracts. MW professionals are technical experts who combine advanced degrees with decades of industry experience, and the firms record of establishing, protecting, and monetizing IP portfolios has earned the trust of clients around the world.

CONTACT:  Harris Wolin, harris.wolin@myerswolin.com

SOURCE Myers Wolin, LLC