Increasing globalisation and the international nature of many transactions mean that ever-greater emphasis is placed on provision of comprehensive advice on a broad range of issues. A key area of concern is protection of intellectual property, eg trade marks, patents, industrial designs and copyrights, as well as coverage of related issues such as implementation of IT systems, protection of trade secrets, protection against unfair competition (including advertising and marketing), protection of databases and infringement of intellectual property rights.

Our intellectual property team has extensive experience that covers a wide range of sectors and issues, and is happy to work with clients on issues that reach outside of the concept of ‘traditional’ IP work. In particular, we specialise in IP issues relating to the life sciences sector, consumer products sector and telecoms/media sector (e.g. parallel trade, protection against counterfeiting, protection against infringement of trade marks in labelling, infringement of patents, data protection issues), but have also handled numerous cases relating to protection of Internet domains and advised on how intellectual property issues should be handled in connection with merger and acquisition transactions.

We are also able to cover issues spanning across jurisdictions thanks to our close ties with other offices from CMS. To date, we have handled numerous IP issues connected with cross-border transactions, and we are proficient in working in international teams and on multi-jurisdictional cases.