Practice Areas
Evergreen Valley Law Group (EVLG) works with technology companies with outside funding, IP-dependent business models, and investors who will eventually pick through every patent in the portfolio. EVLG handles patent, trademark, and copyright work at every stage, from a first provisional filing through the freedom-to-operate opinion that clears a product launch before it ships.
Our Services
Patent Portfolio Strategy for Funded Technology Companies
Once outside investors are involved, a patent portfolio stops being a legal formality and starts showing up as a line item on a term sheet. We help decide what to file, what to hold back as a trade secret, and how to sequence applications so the portfolio holds up under diligence before a fundraise, acquisition, or IPO. Our founder works directly in this area, advising accelerators, incubators, and early-stage venture funds on exactly this kind of IP defensibility.
Hardware, Robotics & Semiconductor Patent Services
Circuit-level and mechanical inventions raise drafting questions that a pure software patent doesn't, including layout claims, means-plus-function language, and prior art that lives in datasheets instead of publications.
Our team works across semiconductor design, photonics, robotics, and electronic circuitry, and has represented clients who were later acquired by companies including Synopsys and Cadence Design Systems.
International U.S. Patent Filing & Prosecution
U.S. patents don't protect products sold in Europe or manufactured in Asia. That's where Patent Cooperation Treaty (PCT) filings, national phase entry, and coordination with foreign counsel come in, including through EVLG’s own Bangalore office, which handles prior art searches and Indian patent and trademark filings directly, rather than routing them through a third-party agent.
Fractional IP Counsel
Not every funded company needs, or can afford, a full-time general counsel with a patent background. EVLG’s Fractional IP counsel gives a company ongoing access to an attorney who already knows its technology and its portfolio: someone available for Board updates, licensing questions, and the due diligence that shows up with every financing round, without the cost of an in-house hire.
Patent Drafting & Prosecution
This is the core of the practice, and the starting point of applying for patents. We draft the application, file it with the USPTO, and prosecute it through examination, responding to office actions, and negotiating claim scope with the examiner, until either the patent is issued or the company decides to abandon it.
Patent Landscape Studies
Before filing, litigating, or acquiring a patent for any new technology or invention, it helps to know what's already out there. Patent landscape studies map pending applications, issued patents, and R&D activity in that specific technological area, using national and international databases, so a company can see where its own filings fit and where competitors are already staking ground.order to avoid willful infringement.
Non-Infringement Opinions
A non-infringement opinion evaluates whether a specific product or process is likely to infringe upon an existing patent before that product ships. This is the kind of analysis that can prevent a company from spending a funding round's worth of engineering time on something it will later have to pull off the market, and it can also support a good-faith defense in the case of a dispute.
Competitive Intelligence
This practice tracks what competitors are patenting, where their R&D is headed, and whether they are already in litigation for relevant patents before a client enters the same space. Competitive Intelligence overlaps with patent landscape work, but is built around ongoing monitoring rather than a single point-in-time study.
Trademark Prosecution
A company's name, logo, and product names are assets in the same way its patents are, and they need the same kind of protection. This practice covers trademark search, USPTO filing, and prosecution through registration and for wordmarks, logos, taglines, and other brand elements.order to avoid willful infringement.
Copyright
Software, documentation, marketing content, and other original works can be protected through copyright registration. This practice handles preparation and filing of copyright applications, often a fast, comparatively low-cost way to add another layer of protection alongside a company's established patents and trademarks.
How Funded Companies Typically Work With EVLG
Most clients start in one of two places: a founder who needs a first patent application drafted and filed, or a company already a few filings deep that needs someone to look at their portfolio as a whole before starting a raise or an acquisition conversation.
From there, the relationship often becomes ongoing rather than transactional, through fractional IP counsel for companies that need a standing point of contact, or through portfolio strategy work timed to line up with a fundraising calendar.
Through our India office we work directly with companies expanding into India or needing PCT filings coordinated abroad can stay with the same firm, rather than adding a second point of contact.
Industries and Technologies We Work In
EVLG's attorneys and technical specialists have backgrounds in computer networking, internet technologies, big data, AI/ML, blockchain, database technology, electronic circuitry, software, medical devices, and cleantech. Recent client work has centered on semiconductors, photonics, AI infrastructure, robotics, defense technology, and electric vehicles, the industries most of our funded technology company clients are building in.
Why Technology Companies Choose EVLG
EVLG has been protecting tech company IP since 2004. The firm is led by Kanika Radhakrishnan, a Harvard-trained LLM, registered US patent attorney who was previously a patent litigator at Morrison & Foerster and who is also an active startup investor, having backed more than 25 early-stage deep tech companies across the U.S., India, and Europe. That dual background of litigator and investor shapes how the firm thinks about each patent portfolio: as something that has to survive both an examiner and a due diligence process.
EVLG maintains offices in San Jose, California, and Bangalore, India, giving clients direct access to attorneys and technical specialists in both locations rather than working through outside counsel for international filings.
