Intellectual Property Law includes matters such as copyright, branding, logos, patents and inventions.

Intellectual Property is a key asset for many businesses. Without expert and proactive legal advice and a clear IP strategy, businesses may fail to protect their Intellectual Property rights, leaving themselves without effective protection and vulnerable to infringement.

Whether you need to understand your IP rights, the protection available, licence your IP to another business, stop IP infringement or simply understand the IP landscape your business is operating in, our specialist Intellectual Property Solicitors will support you with straightforward and plain English legal advice.

Trademarks

Our IP Solicitors are experts in trademarks and have the legal skills and experience to help you understand, protect and defend your legal rights.

Trademarks include names, words, a logo, sound, colour or any combination of those, so long as they are distinctive to your brand. A trademark must be recognised as a sign that differentiates your goods and services from a competitor or other brand.

We can also talk you through your IP options when trademark disputes or infringements occur. When it comes to contentious matters, we are strong advocates and will robustly defend your position in Court, if that becomes necessary.

Copyright

Copyright includes the right to prevent others from copying or performing your work or designs.

For an item to be a copyrighted piece of work, it has to be recorded in some way. For example, through written text, drawings, sculpture, films, songs and architecture. In order to protect the item, it has to be an original concept.

Our IP team will advise you on contentious and non-contentious copyright as well as copyright infringement, exploitation and enforcement action.

Data Protection

Data Protection compliance is crucial to the reputation of your business and brand. A business is under a statutory obligation to keep people’s personal data confidential.

This means that employee and contractor access to personal information should be limited, both physically and virtually. Hard copy documents should be stored securely, with access rights for only a small number of named individuals. Soft copies should be stored in a locked-down part of a document management system, or otherwise, password protected. Particularly sensitive information should be encrypted.

The best way to comply with Data Protection Law is to have robust systems in place to protect confidential information.