Nicole L. Little '08

Nicole L. Little is a litigator representing clients in intellectual property law matters involving patents, trademarks and unfair competition, and trade secret law, as well as contractual disputes and business torts. Nikki is skilled in all phases of discovery, pretrial, and trial procedure as well as appellate practice before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit. She has participated in numerous jury and bench trials, representing clients ranging from individual inventors to multinational corporations. Nikki's practice also extends to patent post-issuance proceedings at the USPTO, where she has represented clients both offensively and defensively in parallel with ongoing district court proceedings. She has also participated in cases involving the International Trade Commission. In addition, Nikki has considerable experience assisting clients with patentability, infringement, and validity opinions. Nikki works with clients across a broad spectrum of technologies, including high-speed industrial printers, medical devices, construction and building products, computer software applications, lighting fixtures and circuitry, garage door systems, industrial equipment, tools, and stored-value card systems. In addition, Nikki has experience in IP-related aspects of advertising, marketing, and promotions. In these areas, she assists clients in negotiating various advertising agreements, such as ad agency, PR agency, sponsorship, joint promotion, partnership, software as a service, work-for-hire, and non-disclosure agreements. Nikki has also counseled clients regarding substantiation, approval, and defense of advertising and labeling claims, as well as legal compliance with federal and state requirements, including with respect to websites, email, social media, mobile, sweepstakes, and other marketing activities. Nikki serves as a member of Fitch Even's Executive Committee and the DE&I Committee and as chair of the Recruiting and Employment Committee. Nikki is cofounder and past chair of Chicago Women in IP (ChiWIP), a networking and mentoring group committed to the connection, promotion, and success of professional Chicago women in all stages of practice of every facet of IP law.