IP Litigation & Legal

Our IP litigation and legal department advises on all aspects of IP law. Our experience and expertise ranges from dealing with small IP disputes (often resolved in negotiation), to hard-fought high-value IP litigation and coordinating parallel actions in other jurisdictions.

The AA Thornton approach is, where appropriate, for IP solicitors to work closely with our patent or trade mark attorneys to provide a coordinated approach to both enforcement and protection – ensuring the best possible resolution of IP disputes. The strength of our collective technical expertise also ensures that we can understand the necessary complexities involved in each case.

We have individuals with extensive experience representing clients in disputes relating to patents, trade marks, copyright, design right, breach of confidence and licences, at the UK Patents Court and the Court of Appeal as well as in oppositions and other contentious hearings at the EPO, EUIPO and UKIPO.

Examples of recent cases in which individuals in our team of solicitors have acted, include the following:

• Acting for a global innovator pharmaceutical company to devise and coordinate multi-jurisdictional patent enforcement and clearance strategies.
• Advising a generic pharmaceutical company in relating to clearing the way to market and defending a patent infringement action.
  Representing an international medical devices company in patent revocation, infringement and damages enquiry proceedings as well as in EPO opposition hearings relating to gel-forming silverised wound dressings.
• Acting for a well-known record label in relation to asserting its trade mark rights against a national broadcast and telecommunications company.
• Representing a licensor in respect of a brand licence dispute against an airline.
• Advising a global electronics company in relation to a patent dispute concerning blu-ray, tv, and HDMI technologies.
• Acting for a mobile phone company in defending actions for patent non-essentiality and in bringing patent revocation proceedings.
  Representing a UK software company in a reverse passing off case involving web scanning software.
• Assisting a small UK electrical products manufacturer when attacked by a larger foreign competitor, quickly shifting the case to the lower cost IP Enterprise Court to manage our client’s costs.
• Large numbers of EPO opposition and appeal successes, for clients in industries including: consumer electronics; computing; directional drilling for the energy industry; laser absorption spectroscopy; automated farm machinery; vehicle control systems.

Our services include:

• IP portfolio and litigation strategies
• Patent litigation
• Trade mark, Copyright and design right litigation
• Arbitration and mediation
• Licensing disputes
• Coordinating with local counsel in parallel actions around the world
• Settlement advice

Related Attorneys

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Daniel Byrne

Geoff Hussey