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provides expert intellectual property advice that is business-focused, practical, and customized for every client. Before forming IdeaLegal in 2004, Founder Mike Heilbronner handled intellectual property issues for Fortune 500 companies as in-house counsel for Adidas, the second leading athletics brand in the world, and as an associate with the intellectual property group of Kilpatrick Stockton LLP.
About Mike Heilbronner, President
Mike Heilbronner founded IdeaLegal in 2004 to address a need mainstream lawyers were missing: business-focused, flexible, and cost-effective IP advice and legal services. Since that time, Mr. Heilbronner has advised and collaborated extensively with emerging, early-stage companies/brands like Dave’s Killer Bread, Rumblefish, Ryz, WEbook and Living Harvest, Steven Smith Teamaker, as well as mature companies/brands such as Adidas, Pendleton Woolen Mills, and King Estate Winery.
A key to Mr. Heilbronner’s success has been his ability to work collaboratively with entrepreneurial clients. Mr. Heilbronner has developed trusting relationships with clients by carefully listening and treating their needs and objectives as his own.
Mr. Heilbronner has been honored by his peers multiple times as an Oregon Super Lawyer and listing in International Who’s Who of Trademarks Lawyers. Since 2002, Mr. Heilbronner has been an Adjunct Professor of Law at Lewis & Clark Law School in Portland, where he teaches the Advanced Trademark Practice and Strategy course.
Before forming IdeaLegal, Mr. Heilbronner handled intellectual property protection and infringement issues for a number of Fortune 500 companies. He spent more than six years as in-house counsel for Adidas, the second leading athletics brand in the world. There, he designed and implemented the company’s first comprehensive strategy for protecting its iconic Three-Stripe trademark in North America. Mr. Heilbronner built a trial team by identifying and coaching key witnesses from senior members of the company’s design, marketing, sales, product development and R&D groups. That team eventually won a verdict against Payless ShoeSource—the largest trademark verdict in U.S. history. Mr. Heilbronner’s other major wins at Adidas included favorable resolutions with formidable litigation opponents, including Wal-Mart, Target, KMart, Skechers, Steve Madden, J. Crew and Kenneth Cole.
Mr. Heilbronner also worked closely with Adidas’s R&D team to secure IP rights in contracts with outside industrial design firms and engineering consultants who helped develop some of the company’s most innovative technologies.
Before joining adidas, Mr. Heilbronner worked as an associate with the prestigious intellectual property group of Kilpatrick Stockton LLP. There, he honed his outside counsel skills and understanding through the protection of national and international brands, including marks owned by Anheuser-Busch, General Mills, Harley-Davidson, and the Estate of Martin Luther King. These matters involved wide-ranging and complex issues such as the protection of a motorized sound, combating private-label knock-offs, and protecting the name and likeness of a social and political icon.
Additional Experience
Mr. Heilbronner is an active presenter and opinion leader, and he regularly present intellectual property seminars for various trade associations, law schools, a business school, and state bar organizations. Mr. Heilbronner also serves on the Executive Committee of the Intellectual Property Section of the Oregon State Bar.
Mr. Heilbronner received his Juris Doctor degree from Duke University and his Bachelor´s degree from the University of Michigan.
Mr. Heilbronner’s outside interests include surfing, improvised music, mid-century modern design, volunteering at his daughters' elementary school, and spending time with his family.
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