Specialist IP protection for the face of your business

Your brand and trade marks are the public face of your business and encapsulate your reputation. Design rights tie in closely with brand protection and the two are often inseparable. Protecting trade marks and designs is essential to developing a successful brand, will strengthen your position in the market and add value to your business. This means that effective legal advice is critical for success.

Our team of experts will work with you to ensure that your intellectual property is protected from inception. We'll provide commercially focused solutions for brand management, exploitation and enforcement wherever you operate. We have a deep understanding of the international IP landscape and extensive experience in helping businesses manage their brands across borders.

‘Excellent service from a firm of lawyers who seem really committed to supporting the work of our organisation. Always very prompt, efficient and courteous and legal advice is always presented in plain English.’

Intellectual property client, Legal 500

How we can help you

We can provide you with all the brands, trade marks and designs support that your business needs, including:

  • managing your brands portfolio
  • conducting clearance and filing programmes for trade marks and designs
  • developing customised IP strategies that align with your commercial objectives
  • working with you through the creation process to ensure your design meets the criteria for registered protection
  • proactively monitoring your trade marks and design rights to identify potential threats
  • enforcing or defending your trade mark and design rights through the courts, intellectual property offices or alternative dispute resolution
  • developing anti-counterfeiting strategies and working with customs authorities
  • conducting IP investigations 
  • exploiting your brands and designs to maximise revenue streams
  • protecting company names and domain names
  • acquiring or licensing a brand

Why choose Osborne Clarke for brands, trade marks and designs?

Ultimately, our success is measured by the results we achieve. We have a strong record of successfully enforcing intellectual property rights for major brands, resolving complex disputes and implementing strategies that help our clients achieve their objectives. You can depend on us to protect your products and your brand identity.

As well as our legal expertise, our clients also know us for our commercial acumen, swift action and pragmatic, cost-effective solutions. We are skilled in explaining complex legal concepts in a clear and easy-to-understand manner. With our support, you will feel confident to make the best decision for your business even in difficult situations.

‘The team is very responsive to client requests and has adapted its approach to billing, monitoring against budget and deliverable tracking to suit our needs. The team has used an innovative customised technology platform to deliver our needs.’

Trade marks, copyright and design client, Legal 500

Our brands, trade marks and designs lawyers

With lawyers in Europe, Asia and the US, our international team has extensive experience of delivering results for clients in all areas of brands, trade marks and designs. We act for famous brands, new brands and brands that are expanding into new markets. Our experts have particular strengths in the technology and telecoms, gaming, retail, and life sciences (including biotechnology and pharmaceutical) sectors.

Experience

Frank Industries/LNDR

Successfully acted in Frank Industries v Nike, a UK trade mark infringement and passing off case. We obtained an EU-wide interim injunction, subsequently upheld by the UK Court of Appeal. We then won an expedited trial before IPEC within 5 months of commencing litigation. 

 

Harley-Davidson

Acted for Harley-Davidson, one of the world's leading motorcycle companies, in trade mark infringement proceedings relating to unauthorised merchandise.

Toni & Guy

Acting for hair salon business, managing their worldwide trade mark portfolio, including several active cases in emerging markets.

Fred Perry

Acting for heritage apparel brand to manage their worldwide trade mark portfolio, including the protection and enforcement of their famous laurel wreath logo.

This.Sign Ltd

We advised THIS.SIGN Ltd in a lawsuit initiated by LIGNE ROSET (French furniture company) against the operator of the second-hand furniture online platform Selency, regarding the sale of second-hand “Togo” sofas bearing LIGNE ROSET’s trademarks. ROSET invokes legitimate reasons to oppose this commercialisation on the grounds that the condition of the sofas has been impaired. Selency is enforcing a warranty with THIS.SIGN. which is the supplier of the sofas.

Brentronics

Assisted in negotiating a license agreement with Thales, in order to preserve the client’s IP rights. Thales had reproduced the interface of our client's battery (to be compatible with Thales’ battery converter configured from this interface). We asserted our client's IP rights, including their trademark rights, and imposed a license on Thales so that it could continue to use this interface on its own products.

Bolt Mobility Corp. & B Mobility France

Trade mark and unfair competition dispute initiated by competitor TAXIFY (now doing business as “Bolt”), concerning the launch of e-scooter brand in France and other EU countries.

CITTI vs. CITI

Acting for the German gross market group CITTI against the international bank CITI in trademark disputes.

Stone Brewing

Acting for US craft beer company Stone Brewing in an international trademark dispute against Molson Coors about the beer brands STONE and STONES with actions and counteractions in Germany, UK and other EU countries.

Sony Music Entertainment

Assisted Sony, Sony Music USA and FIFA (The Fédération Internationale de Football Association) in litigation against an Italian company owner of famous brands regarding alleged trade mark infringement in the FIFA World Cup 2018 official video produced by Sony USA.

Sony Music Entertainment

Advised in proceedings started by a famous Italian publishing company (Feltrinelli), concerning the alleged counterfeiting of its trademarks resulting from the use of a logo formed of two capital letter “F”s on the cover of the album 'Concrete and Gold' by the international group “Foo Fighters”.

Wirecard Solutions Limited

We acted for Wirecard in trademark infringement litigation initiated by the GIE "Groupement des cartes bancaires”. The case is pending before the appeals court of Paris.