Your challenges
Looking forward with glasses made today? Patents are the frames for those glasses: they need to be robust, withstand attack now and for years, and be versatile to back commercial deals (and legal battles) not yet conceived. Understanding patents is a cornerstone for technology businesses – a focus for funders and investors, partners and licensees, competitors, collaborators and purchasers, and of government and policy makers. You need to understand their strength and weakness, their costs and their mechanics – whether for your own business or for your competitors.
Achieving your ambitions
We understand technology, and have seen patents from inside and outside. We have drafted and filed patent applications, negotiated licences and handled disputes, worked with inventors, helped funders, claimed ownership, disputed royalties, opposed patents, fought disputes, helped launch spin-outs, found gaps through the patent jungles. But all of these are just an element of understanding patents. We understand that they are a commercial tool – we aim to make them work for you.
The strength you need
Our team, lead by Alasdair Poore, a Chartered Patent Attorney and IP lawyer for thirty years (and currently Vice President of the Chartered Institute of Patent Attorneys), includes those who have worked in-house and on secondment, those who have worked in media, telecommunications and electronics, and biotechnology; those who have filed patents and those who have litigated them. And they have advised small businesses to large multinationals, universities and the public sector. But the key to the team is that they like to get involved, to understand the technology and the business, and to work as a team with you.
Lawyers you can trust
We can make patents work for you. Team members are rated in Chambers and Legal 500: “Supremely experienced IP specialist Isabel Napper … Clients praise IT lawyer and Chartered Patent Attorney Alasdair Poore as an ‘exceptional communicator with great expertise and experience‘, and Richard Plaistowe as ‘resourceful, thorough, and combative where necessary‘. The firm’s ‘enthusiasm for the often neglected area of data protection‘ is greatly appreciated.”
Our clients have said a remarkable collection of “big hitters”; “it’s the first time we have felt [our] solicitors are part of our business”; "knows what she is doing and does it well". That is the way we want it, so you can feel confident you have advice not just on your doorstep but as part of your business.