Brands and Trade Marks

Ashfords' Brand Protection lawyers advise brand owners on all issues relating to the securing, maintaining, exploitation and enforcement of their valuable brands and trade marks. We have an excellent track record in helping our clients to ensure that they make the right strategic decisions when it comes to brand protection.

As well as advising on the clearance, filing and registration aspects of trade marks and brands, we also work with our clients to help ensure that they successfully resolve brand, trade mark & domain name disputes.

• 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; and
  
• conducting due diligence on target brand and trade mark portfolios.

Recent work undertaken includes:

• advising a leading on-line clothing retailer on its worldwide trade mark filing, prosecution and enforcement programme;
• negotiating (over a 2 year period) and concluding a worldwide trade mark co-existence agreement for a leading children's nursery supplier;
  
• managing the worldwide trade mark portfolio of a famous London based fragrance house, including filing and prosecuting trade mark applications and conducting trade mark oppositions and disputes.