Klarquist Sparkman, LLP

Klarquist Sparkman, LLP, a Portland, Oregon-based intellectual property law firm, operates exclusively as a prime contractor delivering patent legal services to federal health and research agencies, with 100% of its 6,856 recent awards concentrated in patent prosecution, filing, and technology transfer support roles. The firm competes on a full-and-open basis with no set-aside designations across its entire federal footprint.

Klarquist Sparkman's capability portfolio centers on concrete patent legal work: drafting and filing provisional and non-provisional patent applications domestically and internationally, responding to patent office actions, conducting conflict-of-interest checks, pursuing Patent Cooperation Treaty filings, and managing patent portfolios for inventions arising from federally funded research across biotechnology, chemistry, medical engineering, and software domains. Recent representative delivery orders span a $6,044,290 National Cancer Institute task for biotechnology patent legal services (time and materials, June 2024–June 2027), a $1,868,500 NCI chemistry-related patent services order (time and materials, June 2024–June 2027), a $3,937,773 Food and Drug Administration firm fixed-price and time-and-materials patent legal contract (May 2024–July 2029), and a $87,794 National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases delivery order under the NIH Patent Legal Services IDIQ (July 2025).

Customer concentration is extreme and HHS-dominated. The top five funding agencies account for 89% of awards by count, anchored by the National Institutes of Health Office of the Director (3,127 awards, $18.7 million), NIH administrative logistics (1,747 awards, $511.5 million), and the NIH central office (711 awards, $13.33 billion combined potential value — 61% of the firm's entire dollar footprint). NIAID ranks fourth with 264 awards and $392 million. The firm serves 19 federal agencies but delivers almost exclusively patent legal support within the Department of Health and Human Services ecosystem: NIH institutes, CDC, and FDA. By potential value, the NIH central office dominates at $13.33 billion across 711 awards, followed by NIH logistics operations at $511.5 million and NIAID at $392 million.

Klarquist Sparkman's vehicle position is defined by two large NIH IDIQs and one FDA single-award contract. The firm holds a $115 million to $386 million multiple-award NIH Patent Legal Services IDIQ (summaries cite both figures, likely reflecting contract modifications) from which 335 task orders have issued, carrying $21.2 million in combined potential value. The largest parent vehicle by task-order volume is Indefinite Delivery Contract 263020020, a $20.27 billion NIH vehicle from which 841 delivery orders have flowed to Klarquist Sparkman. The firm also holds a $5,010,000 single-award FDA patent legal services IDIQ running through July 2027, with multiple delivery orders issued under it. These vehicles channel work to the firm without competition; they are the dominant pipeline for its federal revenue.

Activity has been volatile and recently compressed. The firm received 55 awards in 2022, 12 in 2023, 63 in 2024, 35 in 2025, and 1 award in 2026 (as of April 2026). This is not steady-state growth; it reflects task-order clustering and timing variation on large blanket contracts. Within the next twenty-four months, 25 awards carrying $10.2 million in combined potential value reach ultimate completion and face recompete exposure or expiration. For a firm whose federal revenue is overwhelmingly concentrated in HHS patent legal work flowing from a small number of master contracts, this recompete window is material.

SCI-reported federal services invoicing totaled $5.9 million across FY2022–FY2024 (FY2022: $2.2 million; FY2023: $1.6 million; FY2024: $2 million). SCI captures only service contracts above $150,000 and excludes goods and classified work; the firm's actual federal revenue is substantially larger, dominated by delivery orders under the NIH IDIQ vehicles, which dwarf the SCI footprint. Across SCI-reportable contracts, the firm deployed roughly 1.4 FTEs in FY2022, 1.0 FTE in FY2023, and 1.2 FTEs in FY2024 — a lean delivery model for a specialized legal services firm. Government-paid hourly rates on SCI contracts ran a median of $777.68/hr, ranging from $615.69/hr at the 10th percentile to $1,421.61/hr at the 90th percentile, consistent with senior attorney and partner-level IP law billings. The firm does not subcontract; it performs all work in-house and reported zero sub-hours share across prime contracts.

Klarquist Sparkman operates in a niche with minimal competitive friction within its core customer set. All 6,856 awards are prime contracts; it does not pursue work as a subcontractor to other primes. Its entire federal footprint is patent legal services delivered to NIH institutes and the CDC under master contracts awarded in 2020 and thereafter. The firm has maintained registration in SAM since June 2004 and has built a two-decade relationship with the NIH patent legal services portfolio, but its footprint remains almost entirely dependent on a small number of large government-wide or agency-wide IDIQs that are sources of steady task-order flow rather than competitive repricing events.