Intellectual Property

The law encourages innovation, invention and creativity by allowing people to protect the results of their efforts through a collection of rights known as intellectual property (sometimes called IPR’s). These IPR’s include the right for the owner of the intellectual property to commercialise and generate income from it by selling or licensing it.

There are various different types of intellectual property right, each used to protect different things. The most common are:

• Patents which protect inventions;
• Trade marks which protect brands;
• Copyright which protects original materials such as written works, music, art etc;
• Registered designs which protect the aesthetic appearance of designs; and
• Database rights which protect compilations of information

We can provide advice and guidance to help you identify and protect all of your intellectual property rights. We can also help prepare licensing agreements to ensure that you achieve the maximum amount of royalties possible.

If your intellectual property rights are infringed, for example through copying or the production of counterfeit goods, we can take legal action against the infringer to help prevent future infringements and also recover damages to compensate you for your losses.

We regularly advise on:

• IPR assignments and licences
• Brand protection and the registration of other forms of IP
• Passing off and infringement of IPR’s
• Preparation of confidentiality or non-disclosure agreements (NDA’s)