U.S. Law Firms Going to China

"U.S. companies lag far behind Japanese and Korean companies in Chinese patent filings, said Chen -- either because they think there is no patent protection in China or because it hasn't occurred to them to register their patents there. Of the top 10 multinational patent filers in China, only one -- IBM -- is a U.S. company," U.S. lawyer Tony Chen told the Fulton County Daily Report. Besides Coke, Atlanta companies with China operations include AFC Enterprises Inc., BellSouth Corp., Crawford & Co., GE Power Systems, Mirant Corp., Motorola Energy Systems Group, Scientific-Atlanta Inc. and United Parcel Service. And Home Depot is sizing up the market. Plenty of Atlanta law firms already do business in China, ranging from the city's big firms, such as King & Spalding and Morris, Manning & Martin, to intellectual property boutiques, such as Thomas, Kayden, Horstemeyer & Risley.