pedigo

Pedigo Law Firm has most recently been awarded “Best IP Law Firm – North Carolina” by U.S. Business News Magazine in its Legal Elite Awards 2020, a research and merit-based selection by an independent panel based on criteria including, but not limited to:  client dedication, innovation, business growth, longevity, online reputation, customer feedback, and business performance.  Intellectual property is all about proving uniqueness in a saturated and competitive global market full of innovative technology, medical advancements, and specialty products.

Pedigo Law Firm is a boutique IP counseling practice based in Charlotte, North Carolina.  Its managing attorney, Paul Pedigo, believes that “the best quality intellectual property products are the collaborations of many minds including the attorney and the creator among them.”  

Martindale-Hubbell® has accepted Pedigo Law Firm to the Bar Register of Preeminent LawyersTM since 2011, which is exclusive to AV® PreeminentTM attorneys.  Managing attorney Paul Pedigo has held the highest possible peer review rating of 5.0/5 in both legal ability and ethical standards for nearly 20 years, since 2001.  He has been listed among Super Lawyers North Carolina and among the North Carolina Legal Elite on four occasions and as early as 2006.  The American Registry placed Paul among America’s most honored lawyers, the top 1%, from 2016 through 2020, and most recently he was also recognized in 2020 for Excellence in Intellectual Property by Lawyers of Distinction and as a Top Attorney of North America by The Who’s Who Directories, each of these based on factually substantiated criteria, including peer-based selection.   

Intellectual property, although intangible, has remarkable consequences prompting businesses to avidly seek protection for their ideas and investments and to stop infringements. Oftentimes businesses and their stakeholders, whether it be a large corporation or a startup, fail to register the need for legal services, let alone develop a comprehensive and proactive IP strategy. That is where Pedigo Law Firm functions at its best:  resolving such findings for its innovative clients in the life science, chemical, packaging, and machinery fields, whether medical devices, pharmaceuticals, or cosmetics, just to name a few.  Clients have concluded that Pedigo Law Firm’s “unique insights have enabled [the Firm] to patent innovations that [the client was] not even aware of being novel and inventive.”   

Pedigo Law Firm’s multi-disciplinary IP approach includes work experience drawn from top-tier corporate firms in Chicago as well as Charlotte in addition to major international organizations. The Firm has consistently helped its clients take a proactive approach in preserving and protecting their intellectual property in up to as many as 70 countries, validating Abraham Lincoln’s claim that “the patent system added the fuel of interest to the fire of genius.”  Significant patents written by Mr. Pedigo in the poly(ethylene glycol) chemistry field became blockbuster drugs earning over one billion dollars a year in annual revenue.  The Firm’s relationship-focused representation allows it to offer IP expertise in a strategic, hands-on way that has extended to the pharmaceutical, medical devices, chemicals, optics, life sciences, biotech, packaging, and complex machinery arenas.

Management is by example and proves that “the breadth of the lawyers background, depth of curiosity and the quality of being a quick study of people and technologies provides the raw material to build effective intellectual property protection.”  For the managing attorney, becoming an intellectual property lawyer was a natural progression from engineering practice, requiring both technical knowledge, engineering experience, and a mastery in writing.  Paul’s foundational education in English and Philosophy with expanded course work in topics such as Anthropology, Botany, and Zoology from Vanderbilt University (B.A., 1976) grounded his pursuits in Chemical Engineering, also from Vanderbilt (B.E.,1980), Law from Loyola University of Chicago (J.D., 1985), and post-graduate study in the LL.M. program in intellectual property law at The John Marshall Law School in Chicago prior to moving to North Carolina.  This foundation and fascination with how things work helped engineer his patent, copyright, and trademark career. 

Paul advises his IP colleagues that “by obtaining, over their lifetimes, as broadly based an education as possible, well grounded in the arts, sciences, literature, and engineering,” lawyers can better serve their clients.”  The notable inventor of the telephone, Alexander Graham Bell once postured that “great discoveries and improvements invariably involve the cooperation of many minds.”  Paul has proved Graham’s statement several times over the course of his years in IP that clearly defining roles – the inventor as a technical expert, the advertiser as the brand advocate, and the lawyer as the professor of all the patent and trademark knowledge – is advantageous for all contributors.