Protecting Inventions
Ashfords assist clients to prevent their competitors from copying their inventions, by advising how to secure, maintain and protect their valuable inventions, whether they be for new products, equipment or machinery, or in respect of new operating and manufacturing processes and procedures.
Imitation is said to be the sincerest form of flattery. When it costs you money, then it is false praise indeed.
- advising on the patentability of inventions, what inventions to register and where to register them;
- conducting, co-ordinating and supervising 'freedom-to-operate' searches and investigations to check that a product or process can be exploited and/or registered as a patent without infringing a third party's earlier patent rights;
- co-ordinating and supervising the drafting, filing, prosecution and registration of UK, European and International patents and patents in national countries around the world;
- protecting inventions, trade secrets and business sensitive information via NDAs and confidentiality agreements;
- conducting patent infringement, non-infringement and revocation proceedings before the English Courts and co-ordinating and supervising patent litigation and other types of proceedings abroad;
- conducting, co-ordinating and supervising various types of patent proceedings before the UK Intellectual Property Office and the European Patent Office;
- conducting all forms of alternative dispute resolution involving patents and inventions;
- co-ordinating and supervising the renewal of UK, European and International patents and patents in national countries around the world;
- negotiating and drafting licences and assignments of patents;
- conducting, co-ordinating and supervising due diligence on target patent portfolios; and
- negotiating and drafting manufacturing, research and development, joint innovation and exploitation agreements and all other forms of commercial agreement, including technology transfer agreements, that involve patents and inventions.
Recent work undertaken:
- advising a leading manufacturer of gas turbine generator sets in connection with a research and development programme with a third party;
- advising a leading children's product supplier in connection with a patent infringement dispute;
- acting for a global oilfield and information services company in negotiating a licence to use third party patent and know-how rights in respect of drilling technology ; and
- conducting freedom-to-operate and IP rights clearance searches for a packaging business.
"We worked with the Ashfords' Intellectual Property Group who negotiated the terms of intellectual property licences, from a global aerospace company for use in silicon gyro manufacture. The issues relating to the use of intellectual property were key to a wider project aimed at fulfilling regional aims. Mark Lomas' assistance was invaluable in terms of suggesting and securing creative solutions, legal input and general commercial awareness throughout the process."
Ian Franklin, South West Regional Development Agency.
