We are a full service firm and details of some of the services we offer can be found using the menu to the left.
Patents are complex legal instruments. Our patent team has diverse technical and legal expertise and apply this to meet a client's commercial needs.
Many patent attorneys lose sight of the fact that patents are also business tools and an expression of an inventor's creation. We are different - we are always conscious of the commercial needs. Furthermore, we believe an inventor should be able to recognise his or her own invention from a patent application. With our assistance, our clients can understand their own patents so they are well placed to manage and exploit them.
All of our patent attorneys have litigation and/or opposition experience and apply this as a matter of routine when evaluating competitor's patents. We also apply this expertise when preparing and prosecuting our client's patents - while litigation should not be taken lightly, we consider patents should be prepared and prosecuted with this possibility in mind.
We can represent clients directly before the patent office and the courts in the UK and also before the World Intellectual Patent Office (WIPO) and the European Patent Office. Further afield, we work closely with agents in other jurisdictions to provide an end to end service. While two attorneys may be involved at some stages, we endeavour to ensure that we add value to the process rather than being a mere cost.
We provide competitively priced, yet high quality, drafting, filing, prosecution and maintenance services. Where possible, our charges fall only at major points in the life of an application such as filing, examination and grant. Unlike many firms, we do not charge for minor items such as reporting publication.
For direct clients we are happy to become much more involved and have expertise in developing IP training programmes, managing IP capture including invention harvesting and also developing and maintaining an IP protection policy/strategy. It isn't only direct clients who ask for our involvement at this level - we are increasingly being asked to work alongside existing advisors and attorneys.
Our advice is honest - we aren't afraid to tell a client or would be client that in our opinion they would be best served spending their money elsewhere such as on publicity or being first to market.
Detailed information on the patent process can be found in the IP Knowledge section of our site.