Sept. 4, 2002 — Winstead Sechrest & Minick P.C., a Dallas-based law firm associated with the Texas Nanotechnology Initiative and organizer of a biweekly colloquium on nanotechnology, launched a 17-member practice specializing in nanotechnology.

The firm said last week it assembled a team of professionals with combined legal and scientific expertise to help clients patent, license, trademark and commercialize advances in nanotechnology.

The practice builds off skills developed with clients such as Rice University in Houston, which is among the nation’s best known nanotechnology research institutions, and Applied Nanotech Inc. (ANI), a company in Austin that develops applications for carbon nanotubes and similar materials. “We realized we had an advantage over other law firms representing high tech,” said Kelly Kordzik, chair of the nanotechnology practice. “We had something to sell.”

The practice’s members are based in Austin, Houston and Dallas but will cultivate clients nationwide and eventually abroad, Kordzik said. In recent years, several law firms have provided nanotech services — Chicago-based Foley & Lardner, for instance, includes a nanotech niche within its intellectual property department — but Winstead is among the first to make nanotechnology one of its 27 practice areas.

“This is a long-term effort on our part,” Kordzik said. “We’re looking three to five years down the road.”