Intellectual Property

Intellectual property rights are often among the most valuable assets owned by a business or organisation. As such, it is of paramount importance to ensure that those rights are adequately protected from infringement and misuse, both at home and abroad. Our reputation for intellectual property litigation makes us a popular choice for helping clients secure that protection.

Our team of experienced intellectual property lawyers and litigators has an acknowledged expertise in the market for resolving intellectual property disputes. We regularly advise on infringement and enforcement matters relating to patents, trademarks, copyright and design rights, as well as licencing disputes and other intellectual property matters.

In addition to advising businesses on how to protect their brands, inventions and rights globally, we also advise individuals on reputation protection issues. We are extremely proactive in ensuring our clients’ reputations are protected – often rapidly securing injunctions to limit and eliminate defamatory postings and blogs on the internet, as well as taking court defamation proceedings against perpetrators. Where clients are exposed to negative media publicity, we help them to manage and isolate the fallout.

Our experience and expertise in dealing with intellectual property disputes and defamatory statements means that we can quickly understand the issues and pressures involved, and work closely with our clients to provide pragmatic, economic and effective solutions to help resolve matters as quickly as possible.

Our clients include large enterprises, SMEs, charities, individuals (particularly sports stars) and entrepreneurs.

Representative Intellectual Property Work

Examples of our team’s intellectual property experience include:

• Advised a US Music Publisher and UK song writers/performers on a litigation claim in the Chancery Division against a record company over the use by it of disputed lyrics and the assessment of damages for infringement thereof by the second recording.
• Advised performers/recording artists on an action in the Queen’s Bench Division brought against a well-known author and journalist who had wrongly stated in a book that the performers relied upon computers to perform their music and therefore kept live touring to a minimum.
• Advised on the defence of claims for trademark infringement and passing off by a company in the water purification industry including claims in relation to the use of sponsored ad words.
• Advised on several disputes in the telecoms industries including disputes involving domain name rights and passing off.
• Advised on the defence of claims made by US party asserting an entitlement to copyright in circumstances where the plaintiff importer was entitled to recover from the manufacturer of the products under an indemnity.
• Advised a restaurant client requiring another restaurant to refrain from opening under a name which infringed the Claimant’s goodwill and/or trademarks.