Intellectual Property

Waterfront Solicitors is a leading firm of specialist intellectual property lawyers based in London.

We are a London-based, intellectual property (IP) focused law firm with clients ranging from large multinational companies through to SMEs, start-ups and individual inventors.

Our team of IP solicitors have years of experience helping clients protect, manage, exploit, enforce and defend their intellectual property rights. Our experience covers the entire spectrum of intellectual property law and practice, specifically:

• Anti-counterfeiting – our trade mark lawyers in London are adept at preventing your competitors from imitating your brands, products and designs, including by working with UK customs authorities to seize infringing counterfeit goods;
• Copyright and database rights – our copyright lawyers advise across a range of areas, including copyright disputes and copyright litigation, commercial transactions, general clearance and advisory work, intellectual property rights audits and chain-of-title research;
• Design rights – our intellectual property lawyers can help you to protect your creative investment and negotiate the complex legal maze of multiple, overlapping design laws affecting the UK;
• Know how, trade secrets and confidential information – through commercial agreements and litigation measures, our IP solicitors can help you protect and exploit your valuable confidential information and trade secrets;
• Patent litigation – from multi-million-pound patent claims in the High Court to more modest but vital patent claims in the Intellectual Property Enterprise Court (IPEC), our team of IP solicitors have the skills and experience to manage all forms of patent disputes and patent litigation;
• Trade marks and brands – our trade mark lawyers can advise you across the whole spectrum of trade mark rights and related rights (such as passing off).  Our trade mark lawyers advise in relation to both contentious and non-contentious matters which include trade mark clearance searches, protection and registrability issues, co-ordination and management of trade mark filings, branding and franchise agreements, trade mark disputes and trade mark litigation; and
• Domain name law – we have successfully acted both for those bringing and defending domain name proceedings.

Why Waterfront?

Our IP team of market-leading IP solicitors have been recognised in prestigious legal directories, the Legal 500 and Chambers and Partners, for a number of years.  Our approach is to combine expert advice with “a pragmatic approach and provide clients with valuable advice succinctly and efficiently”.

Waterfront’s IP offering is very much partner-led and our partners are heavily involved in the cases they manage.  Unlike other firms, our partners don’t just turn up at the initial meeting never to be seen again.  They are actively involved and such involvement is facilitated by Waterfront’s highly competitive pricing structures, which means that partners are not “priced-out”.  The result is that our clients benefit from the maximum amount of expertise and experience being efficiently and appropriately directed to the matter in hand, right from the first meeting all the way through to the conclusion or settlement of your case.

The Joint Heads of Intellectual Property and Dispute Resolution are Matthew Harris and Piers Strickland.  Matthew is described as “having an outstanding knowledge of IP law who focuses very much on the commercial concerns of his clients” and as “extremely personable and engaging”.  Piers is a “first-rate litigator” and “is very responsive, always accessible, very focused on clients’ commercial imperatives and very tactically aware. He is simply a pleasure to work with”.

We are aware that intellectual property lawyers are often accused of being too formal, abrasive, aggressive, slow or simply just too painful to deal with. At Waterfront, our IP solicitors aim to strike the right balance between being driven and tough when protecting your interests and demonstrating strong interpersonal skills.  We consistently strive to provide the highest levels of customer service but we want you to be relaxed and comfortable in our company.

Waterfront also has a talented and personable team of IP solicitor associates who are well able to run suitable matters themselves, particularly when those matters require close control of costs.  At the outset of every matter, we will discuss your requirements and identify which member of our IP solicitor team is best placed to provide the specialist intellectual property advice you require, ensuring that our offering is tailored to your specific needs.

Waterfront’s team of IP solicitors in London represent clients in a range of IP disputes.  This includes acting in large and complex IP disputes in the High Court of England and Wales (in the IP List).  Such heavy-duty IP litigation often has a multi-jurisdictional angle.

However, what distinguishes Waterfront from the competition is that our IP solicitors are equally well equipped to act for clients in small and medium sized IP disputes in the Intellectual Property Enterprise Court (IPEC).  This is because our efficient billing models, and use of our senior intellectual property lawyers as advocates instead of barristers, means that costs do not spiral out of control in the context of the strict cost-capping regime which operates in IPEC.

The nature of intellectual property rights mean that our intellectual property lawyers act for clients in a range of different industries.  Recent highlights involve: our trade mark lawyers acting in substantial trade mark actions in the fashion, financial services and food sectors; a high-value claim in the financial services sector involving allegations of misuse of confidential information and infringement of trade secrets and various copyright and design actions in the entertainment and consumer goods sectors.

Our intellectual property lawyers in London act for clients all over the UK, as well as internationally.  While we are a London-based practice, specialising in IP law which applies in the courts of England and Wales, we have a large and sophisticated network of trusted foreign IP lawyers with whom we collaborate on multi-jurisdictional IP disputes and IP litigation.