- Criminal DefenseJoe Chalverus is a registered patent attorney with the United States Patent and Trademark Office with a focus in the mechanical and electronic arts. He routinely consults in all areas of intellectual property law, including litigation support, prosecution of patents and trademarks, copyrights and trade secret law in Federal and State Courts. Joe has over 35 years of litigation experience before Federal, State, trial and appeal courts, in civil, criminal defense and intellectual property disputes. He received a Juris Doctorate from the University of Puerto Rico, School of Law with an undergraduate degree in Physics. He is fluent in Spanish.
- Mergers and Acquisitions
- Business Disputes
- Business TransactionsBeyond IP, our firm’s combined expertise extends to business transactions, entity formation, estate planning, tax advice, real estate, and other areas. In sum, our firm affords boutique intellectual property expertise within a broad legal knowledge base enabling us to guide our clients through virtually every phase of product and business development to optimally protect their legal interests.
- Trade Secrets
- Intellectual PropertyWe are dedicated to focused, diligent legal representation in diverse practice areas in order to guide strategies and interests of our clients. We are experts in patent, trademark, copyright, and related intellectual property law. Beyond optimally protecting our clients’ innovations and creations, we guide our clients’ business development from structuring entities and facilitating transactions to developing global marketing and distribution strategy. Our firm's mantra is optimal advocacy of our clients’ proprietary and business interests through professional, honest, timely, cost effective expertise which consistently and proactively achieves their objectives.
- Real Estate TransactionsLynette Wylie focuses her patent practice on devices and methods in the mechanical, design, medical and biotechnology fields and specializes in trademark, copyright and related licensing, as well as, strategic business, branding, image and media rights licensing involved in sports and entertainment representation. She has also worked on litigation including filing formal court pleadings and briefs, real estate transactions, estate planning and probate matters and business start up structure and strategy, immigration, family law and due diligence review relating to mergers/acquisitions/transfers of property rights and goodwill. Ms. Wylie’s technical background is in Medical Technology and she attained her JD from Washington University. Ms. Wylie has represented entrepreneurs, mature enterprises of many sizes and individuals in procuring US and overseas trademarks and patents for their mechanical and medical devices, compositions, methods, networking systems, plants, footwear, clothing and methods. She has negotiated, drafted and monitored enforcement of licensing and distribution agreements. Her business and contracts experience includes formulating a gamut of agreements and related correspondence.
- Personal Injury
- Estate PlanningTracy Heims is the founding and managing principal lawyer of Apex. He received his Juris Doctoris (JD) from Creighton University School of Law in Omaha, Nebraska in 1994 and also completed undergraduate studies at University of Washington. Mr. Heims’ practice is focused primarily on patent prosecution and litigation assistance, copyright registration, licensing and client counseling, although he has worked in a variety of other fields as well, including estate planning, probate, family law, immigration and business law. Mr. Heims’ extensive patent expertise broadly spans technologies and the globe, and is focused primarily on patent and trademark prosecution and litigation assistance, copyright registration, licensing and client counseling. He has practiced extensively before the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) and has been involved with virtually every area and nuance of patent prosecution. Mr. Heims has developed a broad overseas client base and extensive know how in global patent procurement, and working across national borders and cultures with Apex’s overseas colleagues. His dedication to his global practice at times entails working through the night to avail his services to his clients during their business hours. The confidence engendered by Mr. Heims’ dedicated work ethic, patent expertise combined with his cross cultural and business savvy, have led some of his clients to recruit him as president of their U.S operations, representing the foreign entity’s domestic marketing, licensing and distribution operations. His combined legal and business experience distinguishes his expertise in advocating his clients’ business and legal objectives.
- Probate
- Tax LawLouis Heims provides entity formation advice and record keeping services, and tax expertise derived from over four decades of practice, encompassing virtually every IRS policy and provision impacting individuals and corporate entities. Mr. Heims received his Bachelor of Arts degree in accounting from Loras College in Dubuque, Iowa and his JD from University of Iowa. He developed a pragmatic understanding of income tax regulations and pitfalls while employed for seven years as a tax auditor by the US Treasury Department, which assigned him large estates and valuations of closely held corporations. Following his stint at the Treasury Department, Mr. Heims applied his tax expertise in a busy private practice in which he was first to prepare and file computerized tax returns in the state of Iowa. In addition to his tax law practice, Mr. Heims’ distinguished professional career extended to negotiating contracts between school boards and teachers unions. The firm now benefits from his broad business experience in consulting with our attorneys to assess tax consequences of our clients’ entity formation structure, revenue derivation, accounting methods, technology and other contractual and business matters. Mr. Heims also manages the Firm’s office and staff.