Spain

Firm overview

ZBM Patents & Trademarks was founded in 2003 with the goal of changing the patent landscape in Spain and is now playing in the league of high-ranked European patent law firms, serving multinational clients from Europe, the USA and other regions. ZBM is proud to have decisively contributed to set the new standard for quality patent practice in Spain.

The firm has grown considerably from its creation and has an outstanding team of patent experts with scientific backgrounds over the whole range of technical fields from life sciences to chemistry, electronics, software and mechanics. They acquire an in-depth understanding of clients’ technologies and endeavour to provide tailored advice to clients, taking account of their individual business needs.

Most of ZBM’s experts are qualified European patent attorneys (EPAs), many of them are also qualified as European Patent Litigators at the Unified Patent Court (UPC Litigators). Our team also includes a number of lawyers who are experts in trademarks and technology transfer. We also have Spanish patent and trademark attorneys and authorized representatives before EUIPO. Besides our exceptional prosecution department counts on the largest number of professionals in Spain with the European patent administration certification (EPAC) of the European Patent Office.

The commitment to quality at ZBM is relentless: its attorneys believe that something is not worth doing if it is not done well. Whether the job is patent drafting, prosecution work, opposition, trademark negotiations or just validations, all work products are cross-checked to ensure that they are of consistent high quality.

Indeed, the firm's outstanding quality has been acknowledged both nationally and internationally from the beginning and ZBM is the only Spanish firm that has been listedin the top tier for patent prosecution by Managing Intellectual Property every year since 2007. ZBM has also been nominated several times by the same entity as the Firm of the Year in patent prosecution Spain.

Clients also recognise ZBM’s excellent value for money, and client recommendations have become its major source of growth as small and medium-sized enterprises, multinationals, research institutions, patent firms and lawyers increasingly find their way to ZBM from the United States, Latin America, Asia and the Middle East.

The services offered by the firm in the patents field include patentability and freedom-to-operate analysis, carried out by attorneys who are highly trained in searching as former Chemical Abstracts and STN trainers and managers of scientific information of some of ZBM's experts; drafting of patent applications adapted to the main jurisdictions including Europe, the USA and Japan; patent prosecution worldwide and in particular at the European Patent Office, for both domestic and international clients, with the firm's attorneys always aiming to provide sound strategic advice in each step of prosecution; oppositions and appeals at the European Patent Office, in which our attorneys have been achieving remarkable results even in complex cases; patent litigation in Spain, where several of ZBM’s professionals regularly act as technical experts and have been involved in the Spanish leg of several pan-European litigation cases.

ZBM's trademark work is continuously growing in volume. ZBM's lawyers offer effective legal and strategic advice in relation with all aspects of trademark law and practice, including for example prosecution, oppositions and negotiations, with a particular focus in the European Union, Spain and Latin America.

ZBM also provides services in other IP fields such as designs, trade secrets, copyright, unfair competition or domain names.

Finally, the BConnect unit of ZBM that was created a few years ago is working very well. This unit provides services in technology transfer (patent commercialisation), licensees search, support in ongoing licensing negotiations, contract draft (consortium agreements, confidentiality, material transfer agreement (MTA), licensing), support and collaboration in R&D projects.

Firm overview

BomhardIP is a law firm specialising in intellectual property and based in Alicante, which started business in March 2015. With a team of multilingual attorneys and paralegals from 7 different jurisdictions, the firm renders high-level EU and Spanish IP services to multinational clients, with an emphasis on EU trademarks and multi-jurisdictional trademark clearance.

All of the attorneys and paralegals draw from many years of experience gained as members of highly renowned IP teams at major international law firms. The combination of professional expertise with the lean and transparent structure of the boutique firm works to the clients’ advantage and guarantees direct, high-quality advice from experienced practitioners.

The EU law experts at BomhardIP focus on EU trademarks and designs, pan-European brand protection and enforcement strategies, alternative dispute resolution and multi-jurisdictional clearance searches. Verena von Bomhard has been dedicating her professional endeavours to EU trademarks since 1996, making her a leading outside counsel in this field. Giles Corbally has over 25 years’ experience in EU trademark law and has been involved in community design law since its establishment. He brings in-house perspective to the team from a previous position. Johannes Fuhrmann, has also been advising international clients on European IP issues for more than a decade. The firm also boasts significant court experience, with its members having handled over 130 proceedings before the EU General Court and nine before the European Court of Justice in Luxembourg. It is therefore one of the most experienced firms in this area.

The Spanish department of BomhardIP, headed by of counsel Inmaculada González, advises on all areas of intellectual property. Ms. González has extensive experience in clearing and registering trademarks and designs and also advises on patents, utility models, plant varieties, IP licensing and franchising, technology transfer and copyright issues, unfair competition matters, data protection, e-commerce and entertainment law. She is an experienced litigator and has handled numerous IP infringement and invalidity proceedings before the Spanish courts, as well as opposition proceedings before the Spanish Patent and Trademark Office. Her experience in enforcing EU trademarks and designs before the Spanish Trademark Court in Alicante rounds off the firm’s highly specialised EU trademark department.

The firm advises clients in many industries, including food and beverages, personal care, healthcare, crop science, toys, fashion, sports, leisure and travel, finance and information technology. BomhardIP’s attorneys make their clients’ business priorities their own, and this drives them to provide legally sound, commercially oriented and cost-effective solutions that make their clients’ lives easier.

The firm’s professionals are active members of IP associations, including the International Trademark Association (INTA), MARQUES, the European Communities Trademark Association (ECTA), the Pharmaceutical Trademarks Group (PTMG) and the German Association for the Protection of Intellectual Property (GRUR). They are also authors and editors of various articles and legal compendiums and closely follow and participate in the development of the law, always seeking to foster brand owners’ interests.

Ms von Bomhard currently serves on the INTA Trademark Reporter Committee. She is also a member of GRUR’s Expert Committee for Trademark and Competition Law. She co-authors and co-edits three leading commentaries on EU trade mark law and design law, is a co-editor of the Kluwer Trademark Blog, and teaches in the IP master program of the University of Alicante.

Mr Corbally is a member of the INTA Alternative Dispute Resolution Committee and the ECTA Publications Committee. He is the Chief Editor of the ECTA Bulletin and is also on the EU Advisory Board for global trademark search provider Corsearch.

Mr Fuhrmann is currently Chair of MARQUES’s European Trademark Law and Practice Team and in that position steers MARQUES’ involvement and participations before the EUIPO in various forums. He is also an active member of INTA’s Trademark Office Practice Committee-EUIPO Subcommittee.

Since its launch, the firm has received widespread recognition as a leading firm in the trademark field with a specialisation in EU trademarks. It received tier one ranking in IP STARS 2022 and 2023, gold ranking in WTR 1000 2020, 2021, 2022 and 2023.

It was awarded Trademark Prosecution Firm of the Year 2022 & 2023 in Spain by both IAM/WTR Global IP Awards and Managing IP and recently recognised as EUIPO Trademark Prosecution Firm of the Year in 2023 by IAM/WTR Global IP Awards.

The firm is included in the Spanish category due to its location, but the awards reflect its pan-European activities.

Firm overview

BALDER is one of Spain’s most leading edge IP law firms, founded in Madrid in 2012. The team’s mix of nationalities, cultures and backgrounds results in a different, modern, and adaptable approach to IP law. BALDER offers a complete range of legal services designed to help you succeed in a global competitive market.

The team combines patent and trademark attorneys and litigators and academically trained specialists with extensive and proven experience within the sector. BALDER’s professionals are perfectly positioned to advise clients at the UPC, EPO, EUIPO and other European and international courts.

BALDER is well known for thinking outside the box, using innovative strategies and determination to ensure that your legal needs are met. Furthermore, they are native speakers of different key languages, such as English, German, Spanish, French, Catalan, Mandarin, and Portuguese, ensuring nothing gets lost in translation. At BALDER, talent has no borders: the team is as diverse as the clients, operating across all industries, from start-ups to global corporations, providing an end-to-end personalized service.

BALDER provides expert IP services in Spanish and Portuguese speaking countries with simplified administrative solutions through a uniform professional and technical approach. Simplicity, cost efficiency and first-class service; take advantage of their unique and innovative system, language skills along with experience acquired over many years in the Latin American region.

Throughout the 10+ years of business, they learned that consistency is essential which is why ISO Quality Standards were implemented from the beginning and ISO certification has been maintained ever since.

BALDER's aim has always been to be a state of the art IP law firm, a true pioneer in the field, continuously searching for improvements, to conduct business in an ethical, responsible, and outstanding manner. From trademarks to patents to specializing in IP legal matters in the new era of Web 3 tech, you are covered!

Using a flexible approach allows the firm to respond to each client’s unique needs, offering more than a made-to-measure service in a changing IP marketplace.

BALDER - Smart IP for Smart Businesses!

Firm overview

IP practitioners with technical expertise.

Our international team of patent attorneys and attorneys-at-law know how to successfully enforce your industrial property claims. We scrupulously and tenaciously get to the bottom of matters, breaking complex cases down in a clear and comprehensible manner, while continuing to bear our clients’ goals in mind. That’s how we find crucial, convincing arguments. And we do so with passion and a fighting spirit — this is our key to success.

Our professional expertise is also highly regarded among German and international professional organizations, at international conventions, and as consultants for the German Federal Government and for patent and trademark offices.

Competency in all fields of IP law combined with sector-specific knowledge

We offer expertise in all areas of industrial property law. Our extensive experience covers an extremely wide range of sectors from telecommunications, electrical engineering and electronics, mechanical engineering, medical technology, chemistry, software and semiconductor technology through to sport, food and fashion.