Self-driving technology rewrites assumptions the law has relied on for a century, from who is at fault in a crash to how a vehicle is even allowed on the road. We work with developers building autonomy for ground vehicles, aircraft, and maritime systems, and our engineering background means we understand the sensor stacks, planning systems, and V2X communications you are patenting and deploying, not just the legal abstractions over them.
Patent Strategy and Freedom to Operate
Autonomy sits in a dense thicket of overlapping patents held across the industry. We build patent strategies around your perception, planning, and control systems, run freedom-to-operate analyses before you commit engineering to a path, and negotiate licenses and cross-licenses where they make sense. We also protect the trade secrets your patents cannot, and advise on standard-essential patents tied to V2X and related communications standards.
Testing and Deployment Permits
Where and how you can test and deploy depends heavily on jurisdiction. We help you work through federal autonomous-vehicle guidance and rulemaking, the patchwork of state AV laws, and the testing and deployment permits each program demands. We support safety certification efforts and, when you operate across borders, help you reconcile the differing regulatory frameworks so a compliant program in one place does not stall everywhere else.
Liability and Insurance
When the driver is software, the old liability model no longer fits. We advise on product liability exposure for autonomous systems and help allocate responsibility among developers, suppliers, fleet operators, and platform owners through your contracts. We work on insurance structures suited to autonomy, draft incident response protocols that preserve evidence and limit fallout, and prepare your defense posture before a claim ever arrives.