We are troubleshooters. Our job is to keep you or your clients out of trouble or, if you are already in trouble, to extricate you or your clients from it as cheaply, quickly and satisfactorily as possible.
The best way to keep out of trouble is to anticipate it before it occurs. That is why it is a good idea to consult us at the earliest possible stage. Thus, if you have developed a new product or service that gives your business a competitive edge we can discuss the options that allow you to keep that advantage. That does not necessarily mean applying for patents, trade marks or registered designs for everything you produce everywhere in the world. It means using limited resourced to maximum advantage. Similarly, if you are negotiating a licence, distribution contract or software commission, we can flag up possible causes of conflict and advise you how to deal with them. Often we think of points you and your negotiating partner never thought of. Once you have agreed the terms in principle we can turn them into a watertight agreement. We have set out some of the ways in which we can help your business in the “Business Transactions” page of our “Advice and Drafting” section.
If you receive a letter of claim from a solicitor or patent attorney claiming that you have infringed his or her client’s patent, trade mark, copyright, design or other intellectual property right we will evaluate the case against you and suggest a response. Often that means negotiating a settlement either face to face or through mediation but sometimes that means taking pre-emptive action such as an application for an injunction to restrain groundless threats. If you think that someone has infringed your intellectual property, breached a contract with you or harmed you in some other way we will advise you on the best way forward. That may require litigation in the English courts but it may be possible to resolve the dispute in some other way such as arbitration, ADR or suing overseas. If you do need to sue we shall draw up statements of case, witness statements, application notices, minutes of order, skeleton arguments and other court documents. Some indication of the help we can offer in litigation is set out in the Disputes Resolution page.
If you have to go to law we can present your case effectively orally or in writing. We appear in the Patents and Patents County Courts, the Chancery Division, the Intellectual Property Office and other courts and tribunals. We can also represent you before mediators and arbitrators in this country and abroad including online. Further information on our court, tribunal and arbitration work with links to case histories appears on our “Advocacy” page. Individual members have posted links or references to their reported cases.
Some of us are also arbitrators, mediators and domain name panellists. See individual members’ pages for details of their services.
Several members are authorities in their field and have contributed to the literature of intellectual property law. See their individual pages for links and references.
NIPC Law 