Every business, from start-ups through to international business giants, creates, owns and exploits intellectual property rights.

Indeed, intellectual property rights are essential to enabling a business to achieve its ambition, and are hugely valuable commercial assets.  When understood and protected effectively, they can provide competitive advantage by allowing you to prevent your competitors from standing on your ground and will enable you to maximize your product or service’s value or even generate further revenue through licensing models or the like.

However, this is a complex area and many businesses don’t always fully understand their intellectual property rights or have people dedicated within their business to proactively protecting and managing them.  The unfortunate reality is that many businesses wait until it is almost too late before considering how best to protect those rights, for example at the stage when their rights are being challenged or infringed by a third party.  If you don’t secure your intellectual property rights at the outset, this can cause significant difficulties and costs in the future.

A man talking with another man in an office.

Why choose Foot Anstey

At Foot Anstey, we assist our clients with any intellectual property issue relating to the ownership, registration, enforcement and exploitation of these rights. Our expert intellectual property lawyers have a holistic approach to helping you manage, enforce and exploit your intellectual property rights, whether that’s proactive protection, helping to resolve disputes or supporting you with intellectual property related deals and agreements. Given that we know how intellectual property rights are enforced in the courts, we are well placed to use this knowledge to help our clients avoid or limit the cost and hassle of litigation by ensuring they obtain the right protection in the first place and resolve disputes quickly.

You can be reassured that you will always have access to our Partners and high quality legal specialists, who know how to deal with your issue in the most efficient way and who are not afraid to challenge when necessary. The team is made up of creative problem-solvers, who are able to provide flexible solutions to suit your needs. This could include working in-house for clients or providing an outsourced legal function for Boards. We have offices in Bristol, Plymouth, Exeter, Southampton, Taunton & Truro, and our extensive experience extends beyond the UK as well. We regularly collaborate with other firms abroad, including partner intellectual property law firms in the US, Europe, Australia and South Africa.

In those difficult situations where your rights are challenged or you need to take action against others, we’ve got the right people, who are highly experienced in complex disputes, to fight your corner.  We know when to be strong, challenging and even brave, depending on the scenario.  Our approach is to try and avoid your exposure to litigation as far as possible, addressing your challenge in the most cost effective and efficient way to get you results.

The firm is also ranked bronze for prosecution and strategy by World Trademark Review.

Our focus areas

Trade marks

Trade marks are a vital part of a successful franchise model and a key piece of intellectual property which franchisees licence from franchisors.

Patents

If you have developed a new invention that improves the way of doing something and it brings a real benefit, you may have something to patent.

Designs

For businesses that design and manufacture products either for themselves or others, they should seriously consider obtaining registered design protection for their products.

IP Disputes

At Foot Anstey, our IP team can assist clients with the management and resolution of disputes.

IP Agreements

At Foot Anstey, our IP team can assist clients with licensing rights and agreements.

Franchising

Franchising is a powerful tool for businesses with ambitions to grow.

Anti-counterfeiting

Foot Anstey takes a global and holistic approach to anti-counterfeiting using all the tools available to tackle the problem in the most efficient way.

Guides

Our People

Our team, led by renowned IP specialist Paul Cox, will understand what you are trying to achieve and then will advise on the best and most cost effective solutions to enable you to maximize the value and achieve your commercial objectives. Paul has also been admitted into the Legal 500 Hall of Fame for Intellectual Property (South East).

View our teams
Legacy and Trust Litigation team

What industry says?

The people we have worked with are always very enthusiastic about taking on challenges. We particularly appreciate the search for innovative solutions from their team.

Legal 500 2022

This firm matches up with more widely known British firms in terms of expertise and conflict resolution. Paul and his team really are an insider tip.

Legal 500 2022

I work with a number of UK law firms on IP matters. The team from Foot Anstey stands heads and shoulders above them all in terms of quality, responsiveness, efficiency, value and professionalism. Their practical advice particularly where disputes arise is highly valued by us and our clients.

Legal 500 2022

Key Contacts

Related Services

Retail & Consumer

The sheer pace of retail leaves little time to plan ahead.

Our experienced team are on-hand 24/7 with the progressive solutions clients are asking for in the areas that matter to them everyday

Trade marks

Trade marks come in many different forms, including word marks, logos, smells, gestures, colours and sounds.

Trade mark rights are territorial. It is critical to ensure that you secure registered trade marks in relevant countries to prevent third parties from using an identical or similar marks and to prevent others from blocking the use and registration of your own mark.

Franchising

Franchising is a powerful tool for businesses with ambitions to grow. A successful franchising model can unlock the hidden value in a franchisor’s brand and know how developed over many years and pair it with a franchisee’s enthusiasm and knowledge of a certain market or audience.

Dispute Resolution

Disputes are an inevitable part of any business, introducing unwanted risk and high stress. They also create a distraction that takes you away from what you do best and where you need to be.

Let us help your business get the results it needs.

Fraud

Fraud is big business. It costs the UK economy over £100 billion a year. It creates holes in your finances. It sows distrust among your colleagues and partners.

The threat of fraud will never cease. Which is why we’ll always be ready to act.

Technology

Technology is at the heart of the way businesses interact, communicate, manage staff and position themselves in the market place.

Our technology team can add value by engaging with you on business and technology strategy as well as simply advising on legal issues.

At Foot Anstey, we’ve invested in our team of finance experts. We hire, develop and retain lawyers with deep specialisms in specific areas of finance law – because we know you need and want more than a jack of all trades.

General Counsel Services

Life as a General Counsel can be tough – balancing dealing with a wide range of proactive and reactive legal issues and risk management on behalf of your organisation, while also dealing with the operational side of the role such as running a team, supplier management, systems, processes and technology.

Our General Counsel services model takes a unique approach to working with you and helping you to address these challenges.

Commercial

Whether or not your company has an in-house legal function, running a business today presents many complex challenges.

We think it’s important that we genuinely get to know our clients businesses – that’s how we can deliver value that goes beyond just the monetary.

Media & Entertainment

Keeping control of owned creative content – and the data which make it profitable – is a constant challenge.

Our stable of media lawyers understand our sector and are leaders in the field – the right team as you navigate through changing commercial trends and legal challenges.

Retail & Consumer

The sheer pace of retail leaves little time to plan ahead.

Our experienced team are on-hand 24/7 with the progressive solutions clients are asking for in the areas that matter to them everyday

Trade marks

Trade marks come in many different forms, including word marks, logos, smells, gestures, colours and sounds.

Trade mark rights are territorial. It is critical to ensure that you secure registered trade marks in relevant countries to prevent third parties from using an identical or similar marks and to prevent others from blocking the use and registration of your own mark.

Franchising

Franchising is a powerful tool for businesses with ambitions to grow. A successful franchising model can unlock the hidden value in a franchisor’s brand and know how developed over many years and pair it with a franchisee’s enthusiasm and knowledge of a certain market or audience.

Dispute Resolution

Disputes are an inevitable part of any business, introducing unwanted risk and high stress. They also create a distraction that takes you away from what you do best and where you need to be.

Let us help your business get the results it needs.

Fraud

Fraud is big business. It costs the UK economy over £100 billion a year. It creates holes in your finances. It sows distrust among your colleagues and partners.

The threat of fraud will never cease. Which is why we’ll always be ready to act.

Technology

Technology is at the heart of the way businesses interact, communicate, manage staff and position themselves in the market place.

Our technology team can add value by engaging with you on business and technology strategy as well as simply advising on legal issues.

At Foot Anstey, we’ve invested in our team of finance experts. We hire, develop and retain lawyers with deep specialisms in specific areas of finance law – because we know you need and want more than a jack of all trades.

General Counsel Services

Life as a General Counsel can be tough – balancing dealing with a wide range of proactive and reactive legal issues and risk management on behalf of your organisation, while also dealing with the operational side of the role such as running a team, supplier management, systems, processes and technology.

Our General Counsel services model takes a unique approach to working with you and helping you to address these challenges.

Commercial

Whether or not your company has an in-house legal function, running a business today presents many complex challenges.

We think it’s important that we genuinely get to know our clients businesses – that’s how we can deliver value that goes beyond just the monetary.

Media & Entertainment

Keeping control of owned creative content – and the data which make it profitable – is a constant challenge.

Our stable of media lawyers understand our sector and are leaders in the field – the right team as you navigate through changing commercial trends and legal challenges.

Insights & News

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