About
Ruben Alcoba, Esq. - USPTO Registered Patent Attorney · 25 Years · Miami · English & Spanish
Most people who call me start the same way. They apologize.
"It's probably nothing." "It's just an idea." "I don't even know if this is
worth your time."
It usually is. And after twenty-five years of listening to that same opening
sentence, I've learned that the person apologizing is very often the one
holding something genuinely valuable — they just have no idea yet, because
nobody ever told them what the law already considers theirs.
I'm Ruben Alcoba, a Registered U.S. Patent Attorney and the founder of Alcoba
Law Group in Miami. I've been admitted to practice before the United States
Patent and Trademark Office since 1999 (Reg. No. 44,499), I'm a member of The
Florida Bar, and I'm admitted before the federal courts. Before law school at
the University of Miami, I earned a degree in chemistry — which is why I'm
comfortable sitting with a chemical process, a mechanical prototype, or a piece
of software and turning it into claims an examiner will grant and a competitor
will respect.
But credentials aren't why people stay.
What I hear most often, at the end of a first call, is this: "That's the first
time anyone explained it to me." That matters more to me than anything on my
résumé. If you leave our conversation understanding your own situation — even
if you decide not to hire me — I've done something worth doing.
I work with solo inventors who've been told their idea is too small. With
Amazon sellers watching copycats appear overnight. With family businesses that
have been quietly successful for a decade and have never once written down what
they own. And with founders across Latin America, Europe, and the Caribbean who
are entering the U.S. market and need someone who speaks both their language
and the government's. I practice in English and Spanish, and I do that because
the most important conversation of your business life should not happen in your
second language.
I also write and teach, because I'd rather you understand this before you need
me. I'm the author of PROTECT OR PERISH, on patent strategy and the mistakes
that cost inventors their rights before they ever file; CONTROL THE BRAND, on
trademarks as market leverage; OWN THE LABEL, on intellectual property in
fashion; and THE FAMILY FORMULA, on what a family business actually owns and
how to keep it. I publish free explainers on my YouTube channel,
@WeAreAlcobaLaw, in plain language, in both languages, because the thing that
costs people their rights is almost never bad intentions. It's simply not
knowing.
Here's what I'd ask of you: don't wait until something has already gone wrong.
The most expensive words in my practice are "I wish I'd called you last year."
Almost every problem I'm asked to fix was inexpensive to prevent and painful to
undo. A short conversation today is free. The other version is not.
If you have something — an invention, a name, a formula, a design, a business
your family built — I'd genuinely like to hear about it. Call me. Tell me what
you have. I'll tell you honestly what I think, including when the answer is
that you don't need a lawyer at all.
Nobody should lose what they built because no one ever explained the rules.
— Ruben Alcoba, Esq.
Alcoba Law Group, P.A. · Doral, Florida
(305) 362-8118 · miamipatents.com