Services
Our services are centred around intellectual property that can be registered. We protect innovation, design, and branding across all sectors of industry, and at all stages in the supply chain.
For each IP right we offer services covering strategic advice, pre-registration searches, registrations and renewals, oppositions and dispute resolution. We handle work throughout the world, working with local colleagues in over 100 countries.
Services
Sectors
Our attorneys specialise in one or more sectors of industry, which enables them to provide quality advice with a commercial focus.
Our patent specialists have detailed understanding of the background technology, which ensures that your patent applications are prepared with the correct scope, reducing the likelihood of challenges from third parties and objections from the patent office.
They also advise whether other forms of protection would be more appropriate. Our brand specialists work with brand managers for leading brands and their advice is commercially focussed making sure that you get the best value from your budget.
Sectors
When Nike applied to register the word mark FOOTWARE as a UK trade mark, Puma opposed the application. The issue was recently resolved in the High Court.
There has been a growing number of trade mark disputes involving established brands in the food and beverage sector and supermarket copycats.
Oatly AB register a controversial slogan as an EU trade mark. Learn more about protecting your slogan as a trade mark.
On 26th March this year, Brooklyn, New York, based art collective MSCHF Product Studio, Inc. announced the launch of a pair of ‘Satan’ themed training shoes that were an instant sensation. The shoes were a limited edition collaboration with Grammy award winning rapper and media personality Lil Nas X and used the black on black version of Nike’s Air Max 97 as their basis. Nike however was not a part of the collaboration and had no input into either the design or manufacture of the shoe.
When you think of fashion brands extending beyond their usual offering of clothing and accessories, you may think of fragrance or cosmetics lines, or possibly even homewear. But over the past few years, fashion brands have moved into much more unconventional spaces.
Last year, we reviewed a United Kingdom Intellectual Property Office (IPO) report on sectors of the economy which make the most intensive use of intellectual property (IP) rights, and how much these sectors contribute to the UK economy. This week, the European Patent Office and the European Union Intellectual Property Office have jointly published a report on the commercial benefit of owning IP rights to European companies
Retail sales have been steadily shifting online since web browsers were first created in the 1990s. Data from the UK’s Office for National Statistics shows us that “Internet sales as a percentage of total retail sales” increased from 6.8% in February 2010, to 11.7% in February 2015, to 19.1% in February 2020. With the COVID-19 pandemic forcing the UK into various stages of lockdown since March 2020, internet sales ballooned to a record 36.2% of all retail sales in November 2020.
The UK has now left the EU, following a transition period that ended on 31 December 2020. In contrast to the position in a number of industries, the position in relation to IP rights has been relatively smooth. The UK Intellectual Property Office (UKIPO) has created and entered into its database the comparable rights based on EU trade mark and design registrations which were all in place as of Exit Day. The Office is continuing to work on comparable rights created from EU designations filed via the Madrid or Hague systems and appears to be making good progress. The UKIPO should be commended for this, particularly in view of the current working conditions.