Intellectual property rights include patents, copyright, trade marks, passing-off, design rights, confidential information and other similar rights.

The intellectual property assets of a business or other organisation exist in such things as its technology, its brands, its know-how and its trade secrets. These assets increasingly account for the most valuable assets of an organisation.

To make the most of commercial potential and to protect carefully developed goodwill and reputation, it is vital that all types of organisations ensure that their intellectual property is properly protected and fully exploited.

Steele Raymond LLP can help you to identify what intellectual property rights you have, to protect such rights and to effectively exploit them. This may involve:

• advising on and helping you to obtain suitable protection for intellectual property rights whether by applying for registration (such as trade mark registration) or by contractual means such as confidentiality agreements and provisions in employment and consultancy contracts;
• advising on and producing all types of contracts for the exploitation of intellectual property for example software licensing agreements (see also our section on Information Technology), trade mark licensing agreements, merchandising agreements, franchising agreements, agency and distribution agreements, joint venture agreements and many more;
• dealing with all types of disputes concerning intellectual property;
• assisting with the acquisition and disposal of intellectual property rights whether the intellectual property rights are the sole subject of the transaction or part of a larger transaction such as a business acquisition or disposal.

You can also access our free name check service on this website which allows you to make preliminary checks to see if a trade mark you wish to use for a new business or product is already being used.