Trade Marks

Our brand services include:

Clearance, protection and management

• Brand clearance and searching. Our powerful AI software tools allow us to search and screen trade marks registries in over 190 countries together with common law searches including company and domain names and social media handles
• Identifying what you can protect whether as a registered trade mark and/or design, e.g. words and logos, sounds, shapes, colours, motion marks, whether nationally or internationally
• The timing and sequence for registering your brands, such company names, domain names, social media handles, trade marks and designs, having regard to any brand launch and avoiding brand hijacking
• Securing trade mark registration, nationally and internationally, overcoming any objections and/or oppositions
• Managing your band portfolio, including renewals, ownership changes, gaps in your portfolio and correspondence with other rights owners and trade mark registries
• Brand audits, due diligence, licensing and franchising, assignments.

Disputes, enforcement and resolution

• Watching services, such as trade mark, company and domain name monitoring so you are alerted to any potentially conflicting activity
• Preparing cease and desist letters, take down notices, co-existence agreements and letters of consent
• Registered trade mark infringement and invalidity proceedings, and passing off actions
• Oppositions, revocation and invalidity proceedings before the UK and EU trade Mark Registries and Courts, Appeals in the UK Courts, the EUIPO and CJEU. 
• Disputes before the Company Names Tribunal, International Domain Name Recovery
• Criminal proceedings in relation to counterfeit goods
• Dealing with Customs detention authorities and Trading Standards.

Copyright and database rights 

Copyright and database rights are broad based automatic and unregistered rights.  The rights do not require registration in the UK and EU, unlike trade marks or patents. Copyright safeguards a wide range of rights, from artistic, musical, and literary works to broadcasts, films, and performances.  

Copyright can cover everything from the content on your website, images and logos, product packing designs, sound recordings and software. Databases can be protected by copyright which protects the selection or arrangement of material in a database.  Database right is a separate right to copyright and protects the contents of a database.  Database rights can for example protect your lists of customers/clients/contacts and suppliers.

A trade mark is a way of protecting the elements of your brand that make it unique. Common things that are trade-marked are names and logos. But it might also be a sound, a colour or even a shape. Registering a trade mark means that another person or business can’t copy or closely copy the things that differentiate you from your competitors.