HGF is one of Europe’s largest firms of IP specialists. With a dynamic and forward-thinking growth strategy, the firm is one of the few to offer clients a fully integrated IP solution, bringing together over 190 patent attorneys, trademark attorneys, and IP solicitors. The firm has 25 offices throughout the United Kingdom, Ireland, the Netherlands, Germany, Switzerland, France, and Austria.
HGF is already one of the leading firms in the United Kingdom and throughout Europe in terms of its national reach, volume of Patent Cooperation Treaty and EU trademark filings, and position in major legal directories. Its growth has been secured organically and through a combination of acquisition and strategic lateral hires from both private practice and in-house counsel. This has been reflected in accolades such as a continued listing in the Financial Times Leading Law Firm and winning 7 awards at the Managing IP Awards 2025.
The firm has a proven track record of forging successful long-term relationships with clients across a spectrum of business sectors and technologies. Its highly experienced attorneys, commitment to client service, and geographical profile ensure that it is uniquely placed to attend to high-value and complex IP issues.
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.
History
In 1966, Ernest T. Freylinger laid the foundations of our present industrial property consulting office in Luxembourg.
With the help of his wife who wrote letters on a typewriter, Ernest T. Freylinger prospected in Luxembourg and all around the world trying to convince many companies about the importance of protecting their intellectual assets.
Over the following years, Ernest T. Freylinger managed to gain the confidence of important clients in Luxembourg and created business partnerships with other IP offices, mainly in Luxembourg and in Belgium.
These collaborations allowed the office to expand its services on an international basis. Office Freylinger has continued to grow and now relies on a wide range of national and international clients, from the corner shopkeeper up to the multinational company.
At the turn of the century, the rejuvenation of the staff, new openings in the fields of industrial property as well as a constant improvement and variety of the provided services have contributed to place Office Freylinger as the main and largest Luxembourg IP Office.
Values
We assist our clients in developing adequate Intellectual Property strategies to help them in acquiring and expanding strong market positions.
Our core values are: SECURITY, PLEASURE and CREATIVITY.
We provide tailor-made services to vigorously protect our client’s rights and interests. We strongly rely on our highly qualified and motivated IP attorneys and paralegals to provide high quality work for our clients.
Quality
Having been involved in numerous opposition/appeal proceedings and infringement cases, we know how important it is to carefully draft and amend intellectual property right applications during their prosecution.
Our philosophy is that IP rights are commercial tools, which must be able to furnish a return on investment. This return on investment can be achieved by capitalising on a monopoly, by giving licences to competitors and/or by enforcing patent rights against infringers. All these actions are only possible if the rights are carefully drafted.
Quality control
Having numerous direct clients requiring our services, the quality of our services is one of our most important assets. Quality generates trust from our clients and trust is the most essential requirement in our profession.
Confidentiality
Each employee is bound by the provisions of the Luxembourg law and has a strict confidentiality clause in his or her employment contract. The fact that the confidentiality of our work and of the information given to us by our clients is a crucial factor is regularly reminded to the team.
Optimizing expenses
Optimizing expenses is a permanent concern. Therefore, as from the early beginnings of our work, we keep a close eye on expenses affecting our clients.
Our ability to directly act before many national Patent and Trademark offices in Europe allows us to minimise the costs to the client for numerous actions performed before these offices.
For providing services in the rest of the World, we rely on a broad network of confirmed foreign associates, which are respected members of the various professional organisations. Our clients benefit from our transparency in cost matters as well as from our reasonable rates.
Taylor Wessing has one of the strongest and largest IP teams in Europe and internationally. With more than 200 professionals across Europe alone, the size and scale of our practice means we rarely deal with issues that we have not come across before. What makes us unusual is that we are highly-rated across all IP specialisms. This includes patents; brands and trade marks; copyright; designs; domain names and e-commerce; media law and reputation management, advertising and sponsorship, franchising and broadcasting.
We advise on matters throughout the IP lifecycle from development of IP protection strategies; filing and portfolio management through to maximising value by licensing; and when matters become contentious, protecting your assets through litigation in the courts.
All of our teams are technically excellent and many members have previously worked in-house, giving us a deep understanding of our clients’ needs and issues.