Intellectual Property Lawyers
Your business is built on great ideas. Your IP.
Ideas create products, drive improvements and deliver innovation. Successful protection and exploitation of your intellectual property is critical. That is why our clients trust Burness Paull's market-leading team to safeguard their intellectual property.
Our intellectual property lawyers bring a sophisticated approach to protecting, enforcing and effectively exploiting intellectual assets. This gives our clients an edge and ensures that they realise the full value from their intellectual property and knowledge-based assets.
So whether you are embarking on a global sponsorship or licensing deal, or need to enforce patents, we have it covered. In recent years the firm's intellectual property lawyers have been responsible for commencing more than half of all cases registered in the IP Court in Scotland.
But don’t just take our word for it: in 2019 we won accolades of being both Scottish Patent Contentious Firm and Scottish Copyright Firm of the Year at the Managing IP Awards. We are also gold ranked by World Trade Mark Review (WTR) 1000 and Band 1 in Chambers UK and Legal 500 in Scotland.
We regularly resolve disputes in:
- Patents
- Trademarks
- Copyright
- Design rights
- Confidential information, know-how and trade secrets
- Data and database rights
We have a market-leading brand protection practice which is responsible for protecting many iconic names, including: Harris Tweed Authority, the Scottish FA, the Scottish Rugby Union and Highland Spring across sectors including: financial services, media, creative industries, technology, life sciences, energy, food & drink, manufacturing and public sector.
Our areas of expertise
Burness Paull's intellectual property lawyers are experts in advising on:
- Enforcing intellectual property rights in courts across the UK and globally
- IP licensing, including licensing of brands, patented products, copyright in digital technology or software licence agreements
- Research & Development agreements, particularly with Universities and health sector organisations
- Sponsorship contracts, including with global sports stars and teams, for sporting and other cultural events and naming rights for stadium and physical infrastructure
- Strategic projects for government organisations, utilities and major suppliers to the public sector
- Franchise agreements, including licensing of well-known brands across international franchise networks
- IP expertise in due diligence for mergers, acquisitions and investments
- IP audits or health checks for businesses across all sectors
- Bespoke advice for start-up companies and spin-outs as well as scale-up businesses
- IP issues arising in the media sector, including advertising campaigns and celebrity endorsement agreements
- Tactical advice on avoiding infringement or exiting from licence arrangements
- Production and manufacturing agreements, including issues arising in specific sectors such as labeling or bottling in the food and drinks industry
- Cross border issues and parallel imports
- Taking security over IP assets
"Burness Paull are always collaborative, flexible and extremely professional - a pleasure to work with. The client service is always top class."
Key contacts
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Colin Hulme
Head of IP
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Colin Miller
Competition
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David Goodbrand
Technology & Commercial