Firm News
Crowe Dunlevy Expands Intellectual Property Practice with New Houston Office
Aug 31, 2022|
2 minute read
How do I help clients with their intellectual property maatters?
I enjoy helping innovators, entrepreneurs and businesses protect and maximize the value of their intellectual property. Whether I’m working with a startup pursuing its first patent or an established company managing a global portfolio, I focus on understanding both the technology and the business objectives behind it. I make it a priority to provide practical guidance that helps clients protect their innovations, avoid costly mistakes, and create long-term value from their ideas.
Drawing on decades of scientific and legal experience
Gene Tyler brings a distinctive perspective to IP matters, having spent 10 years as a chemist and another 10 years as in-house patent counsel before entering private practice. His experience inside one of the world’s largest chemical companies gives him an operational understanding of how businesses evaluate innovation, manage legal budgets, and make strategic decisions about intellectual property. Today, he advises clients on U.S. and international patent and trademark matters, technology-related agreements and a wide range of IP issues.
Guiding inventors and businesses through the patent process
Over the course of his career, Gene has represented an array of clients, from multinational corporations to startups and individual inventors. While he continues to assist clients with patent prosecution, portfolio development, infringement analyses, freedom-to-operate opinions and technology transactions, he particularly enjoys helping entrepreneurs and emerging businesses understand how intellectual property fits into their broader business goals.
Gene frequently counsels first-time inventors who are unfamiliar with the patent system, helping them evaluate whether patent protection makes sense and avoid costly missteps. He believes a patent should support a viable business strategy, often reminding clients that even a strong patent has limited value without a realistic path to commercialization.
Helping clients protect innovation worldwide
Many of Gene’s clients operate in industries where IP protection extends far beyond U.S. borders. He regularly helps clients coordinate patent and trademark protection internationally, working with trusted local counsel throughout the world to secure and enforce IP rights across multiple jurisdictions.
He also advises clients on inadvertent disclosure, international infringement concerns, and the complexities of protecting innovations in an increasingly global marketplace. Informed by decades of experience, he helps clients identify risks early and devise strategies that preserve valuable IP rights.
Translating complex concepts into practical advice
One of Gene’s greatest strengths is his ability to bridge the gap between highly technical innovations and the legal protections that support them. With experience spanning chemistry, computers, electronics, manufacturing, oilfield technologies, medical products, and other industries, he quickly grasps new technologies and helps inventors define their innovations in ways that can support broader and more valuable patent protection.
Clients also appreciate Gene’s ability to explain complex IP concepts in plain language. Whether he’s counseling a sophisticated corporate legal department or a first-time inventor, he centers on making patent law understandable and aligned with the client’s business objectives.
Applying an in-house perspective to client service
Having spent years serving as both corporate counsel and, at times, effectively functioning as in-house counsel for clients, Gene understands the pressures businesses face when evaluating legal expenditures and IP investments. That perspective helps him deliver advice that is both legally sound and commercially pragmatic.