Brands and Trade Marks
Introduction
Brands are big business. A brand with a good name and reputation is the 'attractive force which brings in custom'. Ashfords advise brand owners on all issues relating to the securing, maintaining, protection and exploitation of their valuable brands and trade marks.
Work handled includes:
- Advising on the registrability of brands and trade marks, what brands and trade marks to register and where to register them
- Conducting clearance searches to check that a brand/ trade mark can be used and registered without infringing a third party's earlier legal rights
- Filing, prosecuting and registering UK, Community and International trade marks and co-ordinating and supervising the filing, prosecution and registration of trade marks in national countries around the world
- Conducting opposition, revocation and invalidity proceedings before the UK Trade Marks Registry and the Community Trade Mark Office ('OHIM')
- Conducting registered trade mark infringement, revocation and invalidity proceedings and passing off and copyright proceedings before the Courts
- Co-ordinating and supervising trade mark litigation and other types of brand protection and unfair competition proceedings abroad
- Conducting ICANN and Nominet domain name dispute resolution proceedings
- Conducting all forms of alternative dispute resolution involving brands and trade marks
- Advising on best practices to adopt in order to prevent the revocation of a trade mark
- Renewing registered trade marks
- Conducting watching services to identify third parties who are proposing to register/use a confusingly similar trade mark/company name
- Negotiating and drafting merchandising, franchising and all other forms of commercial agreement that involve brands and trade marks
- Negotiating and drafting licences and assignments of brands and trade marks
- Conducting due diligence on target brand and trade mark portfolios
What others say about us:
"As a supplier of nursery products and toys into the UK retail market, protecting the Intellectual Property associated with our products is vital to the long term sustainability of our business. The IP team at Ashfords have enabled us to do this, giving clear, balanced and commercially sensible advice across both our whole range of products and our own company trade marks and designs. With their support, we are a stronger business"
Jeremy Minchin, Director, Hippychick Ltd
"The Ashfords IP team has handled our international brands and trade mark portfolio for several years now. They always deliver clear, sensible and cost effective advice with a proactive eye on subsequent commercial implications. An attentive and highly professional team that made me question our past branding strategy. I can confidently recommend them to your business".
Martin Donnelly, Director, Omnipharm Limited
"Our expansion overseas would not have been possible without the help of some very talented lawyers at Ashfords.....the team at Ashfords feel like our own 'in-house' legal team."
Rob Holmes, Managing Director, Gro-Group International Ltd
