If you have trademarked your brand name, it can be disconcerting to find that someone else beat you to it and registered it on a social media site.

The latest dispute to erupt on this question involves Instagram where Kalamazoo...

Brand identity is an essential component of any business. Put simply, the name of your brand is the first point of communication for your business to your target market. It is a vehicle for the associations related to your p...

For companies, brand planning is an important aspect in brand execution. As far as we know, the best brands are also the best planned brands including the legal side. In a recent turn of events Lindt, the Swiss chocolatier, has...

As an IP lawyer, I am well aware of how little intellectual property is understood in entrepreneurship circles. Even MBA courses barely address the topic. Yet the digital economy has many implications on the relevance of Intellect...

It can be difficult to know how much to reveal about your business during the pitch process. If you’re pitching in a public forum, should you risk giving your original ideas away? Is the exposure and possible investment fund...

Every business will have intellectual property to protect, although the actions to take will be very different depending on the business and the intellectual property involved.

Say you’ve invented some innovative way to solv...

JK Rowling is now a successful writer with one of the most valuable brands. It’s taken her just 21 years to get there. Initially, when she sent her first manuscript to publishers, she was turned down by more than 12 of them b...

What are trademarks?

Trade marks identify your products and services so that customers may find the products and services they like and avoid those they didn’t enjoy. If consumers have had a good experience with a business, o...

While the Chinese system of trademark registration shares many common elements with the European regime there are subtle differences that present a trap for the unwary.

Even Donald Trump had a long standing battle with a Chines...

While SMEs are increasingly aware of the importance of intellectual property only a fraction of business owners are getting the right IP protection

That’s because IP is a complex subject, and business owners often don’t have a ...