profile

Tracy Jong is registered to practice with the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) (registration number: 56105), the Western District and Southern District of New York (federal court), and the New York State Bar Association. In addition to her Juris Doctorate, Tracy has a scientific and technical background in the chemical arts, as well as many years of private legal practice and government experience. Tracy practices in both of the firm’s two primary practice areas: Intellectual Property and Restaurant, Winery and Liquor Law.

Intellectual property

Tracy focuses her practice on counseling clients, preparing and prosecuting U.S. and foreign patents and trademarks, acquiring copyrights, licensing, and transferring and exploiting technology. With her network of patent experts and agents, she can serve inventors in a wide variety of disciplines and technical arts. As an experienced IP attorney, Tracy works with clients to create a protection strategy that makes the most of their money.

Additionally, she represents individuals, companies, and non-profit organizations in a wide variety of technology protection matters—licensing, technology transfer, confidentiality, non-compete, joint ventures, and other agreements; trade secret protection strategies; IP inventories and organizational IP policies; copyright registration; technology-related consulting and strategy development (“cradle to grave”) for start-ups, entrepreneurs, students, faculty, and small and medium-sized businesses to commercialize and protect ideas; and pre-litigation IP enforcement.

Partnering with clients in the decision-making process and educating them on legal options is Tracy’s private practice business model. She is actively involved in educating laypeople, inventors, consultants, and other attorneys on patent and trademark law issues through various bar associations and professional organizations, the Rochester Public Library (a local USPTO depository library), other local libraries, and as a business accelerator speaker and local college and high school speaker and event panelist. Tracy is an instructor and author for PDHengineer, which offers online continuing education courses for professional engineers in various areas of patent and IP law.

Restaurant, Winery and Alcoholic Beverage Act

Serving restaurant, winery, and microbrewery owners, Tracy combines her passion for good food and wine with her commitment to educating business owners on how to make informed, cost-effective decisions and strategies. Tracy has prior experience in management consulting for Fortune 500 companies at Moran, Stahl & Boyer in downtown Manhattan and managing a public utility and municipal government in Western New York. Tracy is able to leverage these experiences when working with new business owners to create strong, stable business practices that lead to success. She brings practical solutions to the challenges these business owners face. By understanding the dynamics of the industry, she creates creative approaches to both common and unique situations. Tracy helps entrepreneurial spirits enter this new industry and business owners maximize their returns when they sell.

Growing up in a farming community, Tracy understands some of the issues facing agricultural businesses – seasonal economics, immigration issues, multi-generational family business entities, brand protection, land use regulations, and food and alcohol regulations. Combined with tourism and alcohol regulations, businesses like wineries can have complex issues that require multi-faceted expertise.

Food and beverage companies’ greatest asset is often their goodwill and trade secrets – their reputation and earning potential. With her intellectual property expertise, Tracy can help these companies protect their brand, trade secrets and competitive advantage in the marketplace. This is key to building long-term equity in the business.

The TTB and the New York State Liquor Authority can be complex agencies to navigate. Tracy assists businesses with the licensing and renewal process, labeling and federal licensing issues, and represents them in violation/suspension cases before the State Liquor Authority.

Tracy is active in the legal community and the greater Rochester community. She is a regular presenter at several Bar Association seminars on patent and intellectual property law, including the recent America Invents Act and its impact on the U.S. patent application process. She has also offered intellectual property-related courses through the Rochester Public Library, Rochester Info-Courses, and other venues to provide useful information to the general public interested in protecting their assets. Tracy has written several PDH courses on topics such as patent searches, prior art strategies, and new patent laws.

Tracy is also an active member of the Monroe County, New York, and United States Bar Associations, the Rochester Professional Consultants Group, the Greater Rochester Area Women’s Bar Association, and the Rochester Intellectual Property Law Association. Her current volunteer work supports three Rochester-area non-profit organizations: Rochester Greenovation, Invention Convention, and E2 Edible Expo. She is also active on the Parents’ Council for Fallone’s Fun Time Center.

With a practice focused on small and independent businesses, Tracy seeks to develop practical, cost-effective strategies based on her clients’ business objectives. She believes that information is power and that informed decisions can only be made when you have all the useful information available. Clients find that Tracy’s hands-on style opens up communication and helps them understand the complex legal issues involved in their ventures. Tracy enjoys seeing her clients’ ideas come to fruition. In a very real sense, her clients’ success is like her own success!