Potter Clarkson helps companies, organisations and individuals across all sectors of business to understand, create, protect and defend the commercial value of their innovations anywhere in the world through intellectual property rights.
As a full-service intellectual property law firm with expertise in patents, trade marks, designs, litigation, licensing and consultancy, Potter Clarkson provides specialist support in all areas of IP including:
Potter Clarkson is recognised for its wide-ranging technical and legal expertise, progressive thinking, business knowledge, deep commercial insight and approachability.
The firm’s experts make it their business to understand the practical challenges facing their clients, as well as their commercial ambitions for the future. Providing the very highest quality of client service, strategic advice and ‘right first time’ delivery, Potter Clarkson ultimately measures its own success by the success of its clients.
What makes the firm different?
As a firm, Potter Clarkson has one clearly defined purpose: Creating value from innovation.
This provides the context and meaning for the work their attorneys and solicitors do every day. They are committed to using their expertise to solve the IP challenges their clients face so that their innovations achieve commercial success.
Through the firm’s integrated service lines, deep sector knowledge and genuine interest in innovative ideas, the firm offers a complete IP solution to every challenge and opportunity their clients face.
Built for success
The firm is recognised as a top-tier firm in Europe, with offices in multiple EU-member states, having received accreditations from the IP profession’s leading benchmarking organisations and programmes.
With the infrastructure to match its credentials as a leading European firm, there is a commitment to continuous improvement in the quality of its services by investing in its people and systems. The 200-strong specialist team operates from dedicated offices in the UK, Sweden, Denmark and Germany, supported by an established network of overseas attorneys to provide expert advice, wherever clients want to take their product or brand.
Having been in business for more than 130 years, the firm takes great pride in its heritage, but is firmly focussed on the future. That’s why Potter Clarkson invests heavily in shaping its services and products around the needs of innovative businesses.
Gill Jennings & Every LLP (GJE) is a leading firm of European patent and trade mark attorneys which combines a relentless focus on high-quality IP services with an innovative approach to providing strategic and consulting advice to clients and investors. We act throughout the EU – and will continue to do so through both our London and Munich offices.
Our world-wide corporate and foreign attorney clients value the efficiency of the service we provide in acquiring and maintaining their and their clients’ IP rights as effectively as possible. We ensure the right combination of quality advice, fast processes, and technology to give clients the right support for their needs. Our ability to manage large portfolios and keep clients informed of their IP rights is highly regarded, whether using our own technology such as our well-regarded Client Portal, or updating our clients’ databases directly. Our own service standards and processes combine with individual Service Level Agreements to ensure we provide the types and levels of services our clients expect.
We are widely recognised for our commercial acumen and regularly work with leading corporate lawyers and accountants in handling strategic IP issues, and have developed new IP services designed to ‘future proof’ our client businesses. Marketed as ConsultIP™, those services put IP at the centre of business strategy rather than in its traditional place as an ancillary concern. Through ConsultIP™, we provide a full range of support for patent, trade mark and designs portfolios, including an objective review of the value of those portfolios, to help clients exploit their investment, and attract further funding for their ventures.
Our strong reputation in Oppositions, whether defending our clients’ rights or attacking our opponents’ claims, is built on a record of wins which is second to none. Since conception, GJE’s opposition’s group have handled over 1300 oppositions (close to 450 defending, and 850 attacking). The firm’s opposition practice has significantly increased over the last 5 years through handling over 400 oppositions in this time period. Our expertise is spread across the firm with over 70 new oppositions being taken on in 2021.
Our client bank includes global corporations, foreign attorneys, small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), early-stage/spin-out companies, universities, and individual inventors.
Our attorneys offer a broad range of technology-agnostic skills, in addition to our core specialist expertise in engineering, physics, IT/software, electronics, life sciences, medical technologies and chemistry.
Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison LLP is a premier firm of more than 1,000 lawyers with diverse backgrounds, personalities, ideas and interests who provide innovative and effective solutions to our clients’ most complex legal and business challenges. With 11 offices across North America, Europe and Asia, and a robust international network, the firm represents many of the world’s largest and most important asset managers, public and private corporations, and financial institutions, as well as clients in need of pro bono assistance. We consistently earn high praise for our collaborative, commercial approach, providing novel and efficient solutions to otherwise intractable situations.
The firm is widely recognized as having market-leading practices in private equity, public company M&A, litigation, white collar and regulatory defense, and restructuring. Within these broad practices, we also offer numerous elite specialized practices, including finance, capital markets, investment funds, antitrust, tax and executive compensation, among others.
Litigation:
No other law firm can approach Paul, Weiss’s experience and record of success in the most complex, high-stakes litigation in U.S. federal and state courts. Our renowned trial team is a particularly powerful advantage, both in the courtroom and at the settlement table.
With a deep bench that includes many of the country’s most accomplished trial lawyers and former senior government officials, our Litigation Department is uniquely positioned to handle multifaceted crises, from sprawling cross-border, multi-regulator enforcement actions to parallel private litigation. We are regularly entrusted with fast-moving, franchise-threatening matters because of our ability to develop and execute a winning strategy, no matter the problem or adversary, and to see the matter through to the ultimate resolution, whether at trial or before the Supreme Court.
The Litigation Department includes dozens of former federal prosecutors and senior U.S. government officials, including a former U.S. Attorney General; former U.S. Attorneys for the Eastern District of New York and the Northern District of California; a former Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security; former senior leaders in the Department of Justice’s Antitrust Division; numerous senior counsel from the SEC, the CFPB, the FTC and other key U.S. regulatory agencies; and former senior members of the White House Counsel’s office.
White Collar & Regulatory Defense:
Clients facing white collar and regulatory enforcement challenges look to Paul, Weiss to protect their businesses and reputations and manage the behind-the-scenes interplay among competing regulatory and enforcement agencies. We have experience handling a vast range of regulatory and enforcement inquiries and internal investigations, including involving multiple jurisdictions. Our lawyers are adept at conducting internal investigations on behalf of companies, boards, audit committees and special litigation committees. Within the litigation and white collar and regulatory defense practices, we are widely recognized for our expertise in many specialized areas, including:
At Greaves Brewster we’re proud to have a distinct approach, mindset and location. It means we’re able to do things a little differently. It also might be why our clients say that we’re the most open, transparent and easy to deal with IP practice out there. We believe every interaction with your attorneys should be simple and straightforward.
We are committed to providing excellent, client-driven service and to enjoy doing so. Our aim is to add value to our clients’ businesses, whilst charging a fair price for our work. We believe in working efficiently, utilising technology and simplifying processes wherever possible. We are flexible, we adapt to our clients’ needs, rather than expecting them to fit in with our way of working.
We are experts in all aspects of IP prosecution, including drafting, filing and prosecuting patent, trade mark and design applications, as well as strategic management of our clients' IP portfolios. We are sought out for our experience of oppositions and appeals and are well known for providing clear cut, commercially relevant advice, particularly in relation to freedom to operate and due diligence.
We believe that it is possible to be successful whilst still acting in an ethically sound and satisfying manner. Whilst we continually act to maximise our clients’ business gains, when it comes to measuring our success, we do not believe financial gain to be the most important factor. We are committed to supporting the practice diversity of our staff, encouraging them to work on matters that are valuable and intellectually stimulating, as well as financially rewarding. We actively choose to work with clients and companies who share our purpose.
D Young & Co is one of the leading UK firms for IP filing/prosecution, office proceedings and portfolio management work. In patents, the firm is particularly respected by rivals for its technical expertise in life sciences, electronics, and engineering.
J A Kemp is a long-established patent and trade mark attorney firm that is highly recommended for IP protection and portfolio management. The firm has an excellent reputation in chemistry, life sciences and engineering. Its European patent attorneys are respected for their drafting and the results they achieve for clients in office proceedings. The firm has a dispute resolution practice staffed with lawyers and several patent attorneys with court litigation qualification.
Notable patent practitioners: Pamela Tuxworth, Dominic Forsythe, Amanda Simons, Ravi Srinivasan, Mark Roberts, John Leeming, Graham Lewis, Toby Hopkin, and Martin Jackson.
Notable lawyers: Aaron Newell and James Fish.
Notable trademark practitioners: Tom Albertini, Ben Mooneapillay and Charlotte Stirling.
Albertini leads its designs practice, while Fish is in charge of the the trademark department. The senior practitioners are supported by a team of associates, trainees, and support staff.
Mishcon de Reya is recommended for IP disputes and trade mark protection work. It also has a team that deals with IP licensing work. The firm's IP department is led by David Rose, who is an all-round IP litigator. IP star Jeremy Herzog leads the firm's innovation practice. Another notable lawyer in the practice is Campbell Forsyth, who specialises in patent litigation. Sally Britton is the key contact for trade mark instructions while Lewis Cohen is the IP transactions star in the department. The partners are supported by a team of junior practitioners including Rising Stars Dominic Walsh and Richard Parsons.
International IP firm Murgitroyd is recommended for IP protection and portfolio management work in the UK. Read our review about the firm here.
Pinsent Masons is recommended for contentious and non-contentious IP work in the UK. It is best known in the market for its IP work, especially patent and SPC litigation, in the pharmaceutical and life sciences sector.
Amsterdam-based patent litigator Judith Krens and Birmingham-based soft IP lawyer Tom Nener lead the firm's global IP practice, while Charlotte Weekes is in charge of the life sciences practice.
Notable patent practitioners: Charlotte Weekes, James Marshall, Christopher Sharp, Gareth Morgan, Kristina Cornish, Tracey Roberts, and Catherine Drew.
Notable soft IP practitioners: Tom Nener and Florian Traub.
Notable IP transactional lawyers: Cerys Wyn Davies, Jo Alderson, Allistair Booth, and Gina Bicknell.