News
Hovey Williams Ranked Among Top 25 on Kansas City Business Journal’s Law Firm List for 2023
We are pleased to announce that our intellectual property boutique law firm is listed in Kansas City Business Journal’s (KCBJ) Top Area Law Firms list for 2023. The list of rankings is based on local number of attorneys and provides an in-depth look at the largest and most influential players defining our local economies. We have an extremely talented and broadly diversified legal team that is focused solely on intellectual property law. Our lawyers work with clients nationally and internationally in a wide range of technical fields.
A world leader in intellectual property protection, Hovey Williams has a 93-year track record of protecting our clients’ patents, trademarks, copyrights, trade secrets, and other intellectual property in virtually every major business sector. Our attorneys represent established companies, startups, and individual inventors across a wide range of industries. We also work with referring attorneys to assist their clients with a wide variety of intellectual property needs. Our clients appreciate our emphasis on clear communication, personal attention, and efficiency in finding cost-effective solutions.
To learn more about our ranking on Kansas City’s Law Firms List, click here. Note that a subscription to KCBJ may be required to access the complete list.
Security
The confidentiality and security of your information is extremely important to us. We were recently informed that a cybersecurity attack gained access to a limited part of our information technology infrastructure. Working with outside cybersecurity experts, we immediately isolated the impacted environment and successfully contained the incident from involving the core of our network. We also reported the attack to law enforcement. We have provided notifications to affected clients and, in coordination with the cybersecurity experts, have implemented specific steps to safeguard against future unauthorized access to our network.
Robert Dean Hovey, retired partner, longtime leader, and son of Hovey Williams’ founder, dies at the age of 91
We are sad to announce that Robert (Bob) Hovey, retired Hovey Williams Partner, passed away on December 11, 2022. Bob is the son of C. Earl Hovey who founded Hovey Williams in 1929 with Roy Hamilton, just weeks before the stock market crash that triggered the Great Depression.
Bob was born on September 9, 1931, and educated in Kansas City public schools. He attended Ripon College in Wisconsin and was a 1954 graduate of The University of Kansas, where he later served as Lecturer in Law. In addition, Bob was a Lieutenant in the United States Air Force from 1954-56 and served as a lawyer in the Judge Advocate General’s Office in Greenville, South Carolina.
In 1956, Bob joined the firm, followed by Warren Williams in 1957. Bob took over leadership of the practice in May of 1959 after his father was killed in a car accident. For more than 50 years, Bob and Warren continued Hovey Williams’ tradition of helping innovative individuals and businesses protect and secure their unique products and ideas, and grew the firm into the successful, thriving intellectual property practice it is today. Bob retired from the practice of law in 2006, fittingly on the 50th anniversary date of his joining the firm founded by his father.
In 2020, Bob, along with the firm, established an award fund at the University of Kansas School of Law to support law students interested in pursuing a career in IP law. The Hovey Williams Award for Inclusion and Diversity in Intellectual Property encourages first- and second-year students from diverse backgrounds to pursue careers in intellectual property law.
Bob was a pillar in the history of our firm. Although he has been retired for more than a decade, he continued to participate in firm events and remained a close friend to many of us. He will be deeply missed.
Bob Hovey 1931-2022