Canada

Firm overview

Smart & Biggar is widely recognized as Canada’s leading firm for intellectual property law. With offices in Ottawa, Toronto, Montréal, Vancouver and Calgary, and over 100 lawyers, patent agents and trademark agents, we are also the largest firm focused purely on IP and related specialty areas. We have a history and tradition of providing the highest quality of IP advisory services and have filed more patent and trademark applications than any firm in Canada.

Smart & Biggar's decades of experience in intellectual property, combined with deep knowledge and expertise across a wide range of technologies and industries, allows them to provide clients with clarity on opportunities and solutions to leverage and maximize IP. No other Canadian firm can claim a stronger track record of victories in intellectual property litigation for its clients than Smart & Biggar. The firm prides itself on providing clients with the rare combination of successful trial experience, deep subject matter expertise and sophisticated and practical skills and analysis.

Smart & Biggar has the honour of working with many of Canada’s and the world’s most important innovators and brand owners. The firm is proud to have supported their clients on the road to market leadership — from start-up companies in emerging growth sectors to multinational corporations, as well as innovators at universities and other research institutions – advising them on their most critical and complex IP matters. Smart & Biggar continuously invests in client relationships, and many of the firm's clients have entrusted them with protecting, enforcing and commercializing their IP rights. Whether advising an innovative manufacturer on patent strategy or infringement issues, providing counsel on brand protection and enforcement, or handling the IP aspects of a corporate transaction, Smart & Biggar always ensures that clients receive the full benefit of their unrivaled IP experience and expertise.

Since 1890, Smart & Biggar has remained devoted to protecting our clients' intellectual property and technology assets, and advising clients on how to uncover and maximize available opportunities. The firm is committed to providing expert counsel and guidance to safeguard our clients’ competitive position and help them build and enforce strategic intellectual property and technology rights that will create more value for their business.

Smart & Biggar proudly operates as part of the IPH Limited group, under its own brand and independent from other IPH member firms.

Firm overview

For more than a 125 years, the world’s top companies have looked to Gowling WLG to maximise and protect their treasured intangible assets, both at home and abroad. As the global economy grows ever more knowledge-driven and evolutionary leaps in technology transform the competitive landscape, clients continue to rely on us to help them navigate a changing intellectual property marketplace.

Full lifecycle solutions

Every step on the path to success requires a unique approach to your IP assets. From initial drafting and registration to complex enforcement matters, through to the management and monetisation of large international portfolios, our team is equipped to assist you during the entire lifecycle of your IP assets.

We’re pleased to offer strategies and solutions across the full spectrum of IP rights – with core specialisms in trademarks, brands and designs, patents, enforcement and litigation, IP transactions, trade secrets and copyright, as well as advertising and product regulation.

Borderless support

Home to more than 200 IP practitioners around the world, Gowling WLG protects intangible assets across all industry sectors and in more than 100 countries. We offer prosecution services from our offices in Canada, China, the UAE and – via our exclusive association with JurisAsia – Singapore. We match these services with robust enforcement capabilities from these offices, as well from our offices throughout Europe. This platform is complemented by an expansive network of established relationships with some of the top IP practices worldwide – ensuring you receive the very best advice wherever business takes you.

Experience you can trust

From new applications for artificial intelligence to major breakthroughs in pharmacology, it’s vital that your IP adviser be able to recognize the full value of your IP. Harnessing advanced career and educational backgrounds in science, engineering and technology, we work closely with you to develop fulsome strategies for even the most intricate inventions. This is just one of the reasons why, year after year, our professionals are recognised by some of the world’s most respected legal publications.

End-to-end legal services for your business

Outside of our IP service offering, Gowling WLG is equipped to advise you in virtually every area of law relevant to business. For our clients, including other IP firms with whom we work around the world, this is a unique benefit. Beyond the convenience of working with a single service provider, our holistic approach ensures your IP strategy neatly aligns with other areas of your business – from privacy and employment to commercial transactions.

Discover how we can help protect what makes your business unique. Contact a member of our team today.

Firm overview

Marks & Clerk is one of the UK’s largest, and longest established, intellectual property firms. Our expert teams of patent and trade mark attorneys and lawyers are wired directly into the UK’s innovation economies via our offices in London, Birmingham, Manchester, Oxford, Cambridge, Edinburgh, Glasgow and Aberdeen. Alongside our presence in the UK, we also have offices in nine international locations covering the EU, Canada and Asia, meaning we can tap into local expertise, globally. 

Our team provides a full-service IP offering, from the initial filing of IP, through to litigation and commercial exploitation. Having seen the benefits that our clients derive from our full-service model, a number of patent attorney firms have since sought to follow a similar approach by adding solicitors to their teams. However, our well-established and highly regarded litigation and commercial transactions practices continue to set us apart from other firms.

We are experts not only in intellectual property law, but also in the science and technology that underpins our clients’ businesses. Our ability to draw upon this specialist technical expertise, not just in the context of patent prosecution but also in the context of litigation and commercial transactions, enables us to provide clients with a level of service and reach unmatched by other firms.

Firm overview

DWW is a Toronto law firm specializing in Intellectual Property (“IP”), Information Technology (“IT”) and Privacy and Cybersecurity (“P&C”). Our team of lawyers is as large as the corresponding groups of many full-service firms, and our specialized practices means we have an exceptional depth of experience. Founded over 25 years ago, the firm has grown from seven lawyers to close to 20, covering all aspects of IP prosecution, commercialization and enforcement; technology law; emerging technology protection and commercialization; privacy and data breach protection, management and coaching; litigation; and regulatory law. We provide a full range of services relating to trademarks, copyright, patents, industrial designs, confidential information, and other forms of intellectual property. 

We act for a number of large businesses, including an international oilfield services company, a provincial government, municipalities, an automotive manufacturer and an automotive products company, speciality chemical company, pharmaceutical companies, a major inter-bank data network, a top-tier hospital, an international soft drink company, and a number of Canadian tech start-ups. We have acted for several international drug companies on patent litigation, PM(NOC), and regulatory matters and we also provide day-to-day patent and trademark advice for major food, chemical, automotive and retail companies. 

DWW’s expertise in widely recognized. We are currently designated as one of the Top 10 IP boutiques in Canada by Canadian Lawyer Magazine. Our lawyers have been recognized by Best Lawyers in Canada and recognized in the Canadian Legal Lexpert Directory, the Chambers and Partners Canada Guide, the Chambers and Partners Global Guide, and the Lexpert/American Lawyer Guide to the Leading 500 Lawyers in Canada. 

The founding partners at DWW were partners at major national law firms and successfully transferred their large, complex and varied "big firm" experiences to a specialized boutique firm that offers clients the breadth of experience and IP, IT and P&C expertise of a major firm with a hands-on, flexible, service-oriented approach to client care. We strive at all times to ensure that we have added value to our clients’ organization, in addition to ensuring that their legal rights are protected.

We understand that a pure, technical, legal solution is not always the only or best solution. We deliver fast, responsive, relevant legal advice that meets the tight timelines that organizations face. We believe that our hands-on, business-focused practice sets us apart from many other firms practicing IP, IT and P&C law. We understand the technologies and we understand the businesses our clients are in. We appreciate the need for timely, practical and relevant legal advice. Sometimes, all a client needs is a quick answer to a question; not a 40 page memo.

Last updated 4th December 2020