Whilst the most common use of trademarks is to legally protect brand names or logos, this is by no means the only way in which a trademark reinforces a brand.

Trademarks act to identify the source of a good or service to consu...

Choosing names that say what your business does on the tin may not be the best approach to choosing domain names online, despite it being an approach many businesses have adopted in the past.

Often, it seems like a good idea ...

Increasingly, awareness of the value of a brand is leading businesses to protect their names and logos through trademark registration. As registration is territorial in nature, only offering protection in the particular countr...

Since writing my book, Legally Branded, a number of business owners have thanked me for making this fundamentally important subject of intellectual property (particularly trade marks) understandable.

Some entrepreneur friend...

If ever there was an ideal example of the importance of ensuring the right intellectual property procedures are in place, Innocent’s recent trademark difficulties demonstrates it.

Despite being one of the UK and Europe’s top smo...

Licensing – Don’t Risk Losing Your Trademark

If your business has reached the stage where you are looking to expand abroad or diversify into different markets, licensing your brand could be the ideal way of achieving this.

With...

Software is essential to everyday life, it’s how we carry out research, get our entertainment fix, communicate with each other, manage information, carry out calculations, implement business processes and unleash our creativity. ...

When using photographs or images in a commercial context, getting an IP lawyer to assess the copyright situation is an obvious move. However, as the producers of hit TV show ‘Mad Men’ recently discovered, it may not be enough to...

London, United Kingdom – 2013, May – An astounding 4.4 million viewers tuned in to watch the premier of the third season of the Game of Thrones, but they weren’t the only viewers watching the show. According to Torrent Freak, appr...

Shireen Smith was recently interviewed by news agency Thomson Reuters for a piece regarding how lawyers and firms can substantially benefit from utilising social media, to drive their online presence and search rankings.

The exp...

In any business there will be rules that management and staff need to follow. Some will be more important than others. For example, to safeguard a company’s intellectual property rights, there are a couple of useful procedures tha...

A recent decision of the High Court provides a useful illustration of the breadth of the rights granted by trademark registration. In that ruling the use of SKYDRIVE by Microsoft for its cloud storage solutions, was found to infri...