Intellectual Property

Baker & McKenzie lawyers are experienced in providing a wide range of quality services to our clients. These services span the entire range of issues involving the full spectrum of intellectual property rights. In addition to providing intellectual property counselling and services to clients on domestic matters, Baker & McKenzie is uniquely positioned to advise clients on a global basis given its extensive network of intellectual property lawyers around the world. 
 
Patents
Throughout the world, it is critical to protect business intellectual property, and patents are at the heart of a well-managed portfolio of rights for many businesses. Our patent solicitors are well versed in evaluating intellectual property assets in connection with merger and acquisition transactions, joint ventures, strategic alliances, private placements and initial public offerings. In addition, our solicitors have broad international experience in drafting and negotiating licenses for intellectual property assets involving complex technologies and fields of use, securing the confidentiality of proprietary information through confidentiality agreements and in drafting and negotiating acquisition and transfer agreements. 

It is becoming increasingly common for companies in all fields of endeavour to become involved in patent disputes. Such disputes can be highly complex, expensive and time consuming; and the consequences of an adverse decision could be crippling. Our solicitors are experienced in representing clients in patent litigation in the United Kingdom Patents Court, and in the coordination of multi-jurisdictional patent litigation. Many of our solicitors have scientific and/or technical backgrounds in fields such as pharmaceuticals, biotechnology, physics and computer technology, which allow them to understand and advise upon the highly technical questions that patent litigation often raises.

Trademarks
Trademarks are some of the most valuable intangible assets of many companies. Our integrated team of solicitors and trademark agents has a great deal of experience in advising businesses on effective ways to protect trademarks, including:

• conducting thorough, extensive searches of prior registrations and applications and advising on prospects for obtaining registration;
• preparing and prosecuting trademark and service mark applications before the respective patent and trademark offices;
• defending opposition proceedings and enforcing cancellation actions against rival marks that have been improperly registered or not used;
• negotiating and drafting agreements for the purchase, sale, license and franchise of trademark rights;
• providing practical guidance on how to create and build strong brand equity and police and enforce brands to prevent them from becoming diluted or generic. Such advice extends to creating protectable trade dress and the proper use of trademarks in packaging, labelling, advertising in print and electronic media. 

Building and protecting brand identities has also taken on enhanced importance with the rise of the Internet. Cybersquatting, domain-name hijacking, metatagging, and linking all raise trademark issues for companies doing business online. Baker & McKenzie solicitors address an array of online trademark transgressions now facing companies with prominent marks, in addition to advising clients regarding effective policing of their trademark rights in cyberspace. Our domain name dispute practice is highly experienced, having recovered domain names for clients under all the major domain name dispute resolution services, such as Nominet and WIPO, and being at the forefront of work on the .eu domain.

Copyright and designs
Our solicitors advise and represent clients on protecting the copyright and design rights in their works, drafting licences and releases, work for hire and assignments of copyright works and litigating copyright and design disputes. Not only do we advise on the protection copyright affords to traditional artistic and literary works, we also consult on copyright matters and lobby to improve and amend copyright legislation in relation to new technological areas in digital media, the Internet and software. Just one example is the extensive lobbying we have done on the issue of hardware levies. The Internet, which as been described as "the world's largest copying machine," has made copyright issues immediately international in many cases and Baker & McKenzie is uniquely positioned to assist on international copyright matters. 

In addition to numerous publishing and media businesses, we also advise e-commerce ventures, advertising agencies, software companies, telecoms companies and Information Technology businesses on the formation of their contracts to provide maximum copyright protection for their respective works. Our copyright litigation practice is a leader in the field and includes significant litigation experience involving content and software licensing disputes and all other types of copyright disputes. 

IP enforcement and anti-piracy
We have vast experience in coordinating anti-piracy and brand protection campaigns for our clients. These enforcement programmes go beyond trademarks and include copyright and other forms of IP rights. This often involves working closely with private investigators and government agencies to obtain evidence of infringing use, negotiating settlements with infringers, conducting civil litigation to obtain temporary and permanent injunctions against those dealing in counterfeits, working with customs officials to prevent the importation of counterfeit goods and assisting government agencies to take criminal action.

Commercial IP
Our lawyers have a depth of experience in assisting clients to extract as much commercial value from their IP portfolios as possible. We recognise that IP rights must be made to work for the business and we take pride in making sure we understand clients' business objectives. Our commercial IP lawyers regularly assist clients across a diverse range of industries with licensing, R&D and cost-sharing arrangements, franchise agreements, IP aspects of mergers, acquisitions and joint ventures, re-organisations, IP aspects of manufacturing, distribution and agency relationships, regulatory and IP compliance advice and taking security over IP. 

A growing area of importance for our clients in recent years has been the tax efficient ownership and exploitation of IP rights which often requires a multi-jurisdictional approach. Baker & McKenzie has established a global taxation of intangibles practice group made up of tax and IP lawyers in all key jurisdictions.