Oppenhuizen Law PLC

Focus and practice areas

The firm opened in Grand Rapids, Michigan in 2014, and every service it offers sits inside intellectual property law. Its clients are individual inventors, small and mid-sized businesses, and foreign attorneys who need US counsel on behalf of their own clients. That client mix points to work that is both hands-on with first-time filers and useful to companies with more at stake in a single mark or patent.

The practice covers four main areas: patents, trademarks, copyright, and the agreements that keep those rights enforceable in day-to-day business. The firm drafts licensing and distribution agreements, prepares non-disclosure agreements and IP assignments, sends cease and desist letters, and handles domain name disputes. Each of these connects back to a single question a client usually arrives with, which is how to hold onto an idea or a name that has value.

Who leads the work

This is a solo practice, and David Oppenhuizen is the only attorney. He holds registration with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office as both a patent and a trademark attorney, so one lawyer can carry a matter through invention protection and brand protection at once. That single point of contact is part of what defines a firm this size, since the person a client first speaks with is the person who does the filing.

His route into law ran through engineering first. He earned a Bachelor of Science in mechanical engineering from Kettering University in 2001, then a Juris Doctor from Michigan State University College of Law in 2006, where he concentrated in intellectual property. Before he practiced law, he worked as a design engineer at a Michigan water heater manufacturer, which put him inside the kind of product development that patents later describe.

The credential dates are all on the record. He joined the State Bar of Michigan in 2006 and became a registered patent attorney with the USPTO in 2007. As a reviewer, I read the engineering-then-law path as a real advantage in patent drafting, where the attorney has to understand a device well enough to claim it in precise language.

The patent side of the work

Patent matters here cover the full life of an application. The firm prepares provisional applications, which give an inventor an early filing date, along with full utility patents and design patents. A utility patent covers how an invention works, and a design patent covers how it looks, and the firm files both. For clients who want protection outside the country, it files PCT and national stage applications and pursues foreign patents directly.

A PCT application gives an inventor a single international filing that can later branch into individual countries, and national stage filings carry it into each patent office the client cares about. Search and opinion work supports all of it. The firm runs patent searches and writes opinions that help an inventor judge whether an idea is open before the cost of a full application goes in. Patent searches usually look at earlier patents and published applications to find anything close enough to block a claim, so the opinion that follows can save a client from paying for an application that was never going to clear.

After a patent issues, the work can continue. The firm handles post-issuance proceedings, which generally run through the Patent Trial and Appeal Board, where a granted patent can face re-examination or a contested review. Keeping the firm that wrote the application on those later matters holds the technical history with one attorney who already knows the file.

Trademarks, copyright, and related filings

Trademark work starts before any application goes in. The firm runs clearance searches to check whether a name or logo is open to use, then files for federal and state registration once a mark looks clear. Federal registration reaches across the whole country, and a state registration covers a single state, and the firm files at either level depending on where a mark is used. It also advises on common law trademark rights, which can exist from use alone, and handles registration for marks used in other countries.

Copyright and contract drafting fill out this part of the practice. The firm prepares copyright registrations for written and creative material. A copyright registration creates a public record of authorship and is usually the step a creator needs before enforcing a right in court. Alongside those filings, the firm writes IP assignment documents that transfer ownership of a right to a new holder, and it drafts non-disclosure agreements that protect information before it changes hands.

Who the firm works with

The client base reaches well beyond Michigan. The firm reports clients across the United States, Europe, Asia, and Australia, which fits a patent and trademark practice where filings often cross borders. Foreign attorneys use the firm as their US counsel when their clients need rights protected inside this country, and that role calls for someone who knows how American filings are examined.

Company size varies as much as location. A single inventor with one idea and a mid-sized business managing several marks both fall inside the firm's stated focus. As a reviewer, I take that breadth as a sign the firm is set up for routine registration work and for the longer counsel that a growing set of IP rights tends to need.

What the record shows

The firm's public details hold together cleanly. It names its one attorney, his two degrees, his 2006 bar admission, and his 2007 patent registration, each with a specific year attached. That amount of credential detail is more than many small firm websites put in front of a visitor, and it gives a prospective client dates and qualifications to check on their own.

For a client weighing an IP matter, the takeaway is direct. One USPTO-registered attorney with an engineering degree handles the searching, the filing, and the disputes that can follow, and the work stays with the person whose name is on the firm. The credentials behind that name are published in full for anyone who wants to verify them.