We get involved from registration to restructuring of Intellectual Property holdings to complex disputes and resolution in Europe, America, the Middle East and Asia. Our clients range from individual creators, inventors and artists, SMEs to international corporations and other organisations, including not-for-profit foundations.

It is important to determine the categories of intangible assets to be protected by Intellectual Property, including the following categories, as determined by the WIPO (World Intellectual Property Organization).

It includes generally: inventions, literary and artistic works and designs, but also commercial symbols, names and images.

• Innovative products and processes, including some of the aspects of our business Know- How and even well established and innovative protocols (through patents and utility models). Over the years, and especially in a digital economy, there has been an increased interest in protecting a myriad of processes and models. It is worth noting that around 95% of the world’s utility model applications are filed in China, totalling more than 50% of the number of utility patent applications filed worldwide as reported by WIPO;
• Cultural, artistic and literary works including, in most countries, computer software and compilation of data (through copyright and related rights protection). One of the areas where we have been involved is in the discussion of some forms of Yoga and copyrights.
• Creative designs, including textile designs (through industrial design rights). We worked with an interesting Sotogrande based designer who brought some of the ancient Ottoman designs into modern textiles.
• Distinctive signs may be protected, mostly through trademarks including collective and certification marks, but in some cases through geographical indications too.
• Domain name disputes, arising largely from the practice of cybersquatting, which involves the pre-emptive registration of trademarks by third parties as domain names. Cybersquatters exploit the first-come, first-served nature of the domain name registration system to register names of trademarks, famous people or businesses with which they have no connection.
• Microchips through the protection of layout-designs or topographies of integrated circuits;
• Denominations for goods of a given quality or reputation attributable to the geographical origin (through protection of geographical indication) as it has been done profusely with many foods and wines in Spain, as it was done by the Sherry county in Andalucia; and
• Trade secrets through the protection of undisclosed information and confidential information of commercial value.