So, you own a small to medium-sized business and have been trading for a while now.  It’s possible you have never even spoken to an IP lawyer, and if you have it probably means that something has gone wrong.  Perhaps even horribly wrong.

You may have decided to launch a brand, but went no further than a simple Google search to see if that brand was available for use.   So, you wound up on the receiving end of a cease-and-desist letter from a registered trademark owner operating in your country.  After months or even years of investment in marketing and promotion you are forced to restrict your activities or – worse still – shut that brand down entirely.  All that brand equity gone in an instant.

You may have been charmed by the prospect of a lucrative business deal which was never ultimately realised, but never took proper precautions to ensure that your ideas would not be stolen by the people you were dealing with.  Now, instead of a partner, you have a competitor.

We could go on detailing scenarios like this which we come across time and again in practice.  This is the price a business pays for being reactive as opposed to proactive when it comes to protecting their most valuable assets – their intellectual assets.

Great business ideas cost nothing to create.  That is a wonderful thing.  It is this fact that makes possible stories like that of Andrew Carnegie, the son of a destitute handloom weaver from Scotland who went on to become arguably the most powerful industrialist in American history.  Every great story begins with a great idea.  And ideas are too easily appropriated.

By working closely with you, rather like a doctor with a patient, we will identify every intangible aspect of your business that is worthy of protection and make sure you have rock-solid resilience in the face of future threats – whether this be in the form of imitators or prior right holders threatening to bring your business down.