Heather Schafer

Heather N. Schafer is a an Intellectual Property Attorney and educator. Heather is experienced in protecting, enforcing and licensing intellectual property rights. Heather started her practice in Chicago Illinois at Brinks Hofer Gilson & Lione, one of the largest intellectual property firms in the country, Brinks Hofer Gilson & Lione. Heather has been legal counsel for numerous startups and has worked with a variety of technologies including biotechnology, software, computer hardware and networking, consumer goods, chemical compositions, manufacturing, bio-fuels, athletic equipment, and cosmetics. Heather is a registered patent lawyer and counsels companies regarding strategic protection of their intellectual property including trade secrets, patents, copyrights, and trademarks. She was named an Illinois “Rising Star” in Super-Lawyers magazine for 2009, 2010 and 2012-2014. Heather also prosecutes and strategically manages several international patent and trademark portfolios. Heather’s experience has included preparing non-infringement, design around, and validity studies and opinions, patent infringement, false advertising, domain name disputes, and trademark litigation. Heather has extensive licensing experience including drafting and negotiating patent, trademark, copyright, and know-how licenses, engineering and software development agreements, sponsored research agreements, material transfer agreements, and publishing agreements. Heather also advises on government contract issues including NSF, NIH, DOE, DOD and ARRA funding and intellectual property agreements. Prior to attending law school, Heather performed molecular biology research at Emory University’s Winship Cancer Institute, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, University of Iowa (Departments of Otolaryngology and Biology), and the Veteran’s Administration Medical Center (Tissue Typing). Heather helps companies create and implement strategic IP protection plans and licensing regimes.