“Pannone’s team ... worked seamlessly with the in-house legal team at Ultraframe. Their commercial and practical advice was instrumental in helping to secure a recovery of over £5 million when our intellectual property rights were infringed by a competitor.”
Edward Smethurst, Head of Group Legal Services
Latium Plastics Holdings Limited
Intellectual property disputes require a blend of both intellectual property and litigation skills and experience, balanced with tactical, commercial strategy. We have a dedicated Intellectual Property Dispute Resolution team to advise upon all types of intellectual property disputes.
As the team are both expert litigators as well as intellectual property lawyers, we are able to advise clients on the best strategic use of the procedural rules and practice to put our clients into the best possible tactical position in a dispute.
We appreciate that litigation may not always be the best strategy to deal with a dispute, and advise our clients from a very early stage on possible alternatives, such as mediation, if this is appropriate.
We understand the practical and potential value of intellectual property to a business. We work hard to understand the particular challenges facing clients looking to protect and defend their rights. We have a great deal of experience in representing clients in complex and high pressure intellectual property litigation, and are known for securing positive, cost-effective outcomes that preserve the reputation and assets of a business.
We consider that our fee rates compare favourably with our regional and national competitors and, when appropriate, will act on a blended rate or fixed rate basis. We provide our clients with detailed budget setting out the costs of each stage of the anticipated litigation, using our bespoke costs software and with the assistance of our in-house costs analyst.
We can also offer clients in certain cases our Advantage litigation funding product. Pannone Advantage is an insurance backed and conditional fee based dispute resolution service. Given our proven track record, we have delegated authority from one of the UK's largest legal costs insurers which allows us to directly place insurance for our clients providing cover of up to £2 million in respect of the exposure to an opponent's costs and clients' own legal costs.
Our innovative product can help transfer the risk and costs associated with a dispute. Litigation is traditionally seen as hard to control in terms of costs, and risky in terms of outcome. With Advantage, our clients retain control and can deal with disputes knowing that their financial risk has been minimised. For more information on our Advantage funding product click here.
Areas of expertise
Our dedicated Intellectual Property Dispute Resolution practice includes acting and advising clients in relation to disputes which involve the following issues:
- infringement of trade marks and/or passing off
- misuse or theft of confidential information
- infringement of copyright
- infringement of database rights
- infringement of registered and unregistered design rights
- misuse or theft of know-how
- infringement or challenges to patents
- parallel importing
- counterfeiting
- domain name disputes
For more information on domain name disputes please click here.
Our expertise spans a variety of sectors and we have particular specialist experience in the fashion industry and franchising.
Our experience
Examples of our experience include:
- acting for Cotton Traders Limited in successfully resisting legal action brought by Nike and the Rugby Football Union regarding the right to use the Red Rose of England in what has become the leading reported case regarding the use of national badges. The case defined the law as to third party rights which can subsist in national emblems
- acting for the claimant on the assessment of damages due to it following a successful patent and design right infringement action brought by it against a competitor in the reported case of Ultraframe (UK) Limited v (1) Eurocell Building Plastics Limited (2) Eurocell Profiles Limited [2006] EWHC 1344 (Pat), 9 June 2006. Not only were substantial damages recovered for our client together with a significant interim costs award, but the decision is also important because it provides an illustration of a careful analysis of the heads of damage that might arise in patent infringement
- successfully obtaining an interim injunction for our client, a leading on-line fashion retailer, to prevent trade mark infringement and passing off in respect of the alleged use of a confusingly similar trade name and website in the reported case of Wasabi Frog Limited -v- Miss Boo and Gulfraz Mohammed [2009] EWHC 2767 [Ch]. The judgment has been picked up by a number of commentators in the legal press as the case included the reliance, we believe for the first time, by the court on Google AdWords and analytics as evidence of confusion in domain name disputes
The team
The Intellectual Property Dispute Resolution team is led by Melanie McGuirk. Melanie, who is also a partner, was shortlisted for the Insider's North West Young Professional Awards 2010, in the Young Lawyer of the Year category, and is described by clients as "brilliant". Melanie has a post-graduate diploma in commercial intellectual property law from Nottingham Law School.
Partner Paul Jonson is also recognised by The Chambers UK Guide 2010 as a leading individual. Chambers described Paul as "thorough, persistent, knowledgeable and focussed".
Chambers recognises the Intellectual Property team as a whole as being "...innovative, having embraced new ideas and new technologies very well".
To speak with a solicitor in the Intellectual Property team please click here or call us on 0800 840 4929.
