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.
Brexit and intellectual property – a guide
Brexit and intellectual property – FAQs in detail
In 2001 an experimental alternative to the NFL was launched by Vince McMahon: the XFL. The XFL hosted fewer teams, promising quicker games and greater entertainment. The XFL lasted just one season before collapsing due to significant financial losses. In 2018, McMahon revived the league with a planned restart date in 2020. Fast forward to January 2021 and the picture for the XFL remains bleak, it having lasted only 5 weeks before collapsing due to financial pressures linked to COVID 19. Dwayne Johnson and his associates now own the league and another restart is scheduled for the 2022 season.
The CJEU have recently issued a judgment in Case C-456/19, referred from the Swedish Patent and Market Court of Appeal. The case centred on whether a trade mark consisting of colour combinations, intended to be systematically affixed to goods used to deliver the services covered by an application, must depart significantly from the norms and customs of the commercial sector in order for the trade mark to have distinctive character. This is a test which has been applied in relation to 3D trade marks but we have not seen it applied to these type of colour combination marks before.
The rules governing address for service for intellectual property rights in the United Kingdom will change after the UK exits the European Union on 1 January 2020. Subject to legislative implementation, which is expected this week, from 1 January 2021 the UKIPO will no longer accept addresses in the EEA as a valid address for service. As a result, any party wishing to file an application for a trade mark, patent or registered design will need to appoint an address for service within the UK, Gibraltar or the Channel Islands.
The United Kingdom’s Intellectual Property Office (IPO) recently released a 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.
In the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic, we have seen a large amount of government backed funding made available in the UK to promote UK based innovation. In particular, various schemes, competitions, grants and loans have been announced with the aim of helping UK SMEs involved in technology and R&D grow as the Covid-19 disruption dies down. We have reported on a number of these recently. An area that is important for achieving this aim, but is perhaps at risk of being overlooked during this period of widespread disruption and uncertainty, is intellectual property.