Intellectual Property

Gemma Barrett

Another hire for A&O: IP partner joins firm

Allen & Overy is once again boosting its ranks before its merger with Shearman & Sterling, hiring a new partner to its IP team from Bristows. Gemma Barrett is joining A&O after 17 years at Bristows, where she made partner at the end of 2017. Barrett handles cross-border patent litigation matters within Europe, India and […]

In court this week: Google returns to CAT for £920m class action, as ex-solicitor takes on SRA

Google class action returns to CAT for fourth CMC Google is back in the Competition Appeal Tribunal (CAT) this Friday for a fourth case management conference (CMC) in Elizabeth Coll’s long-running class action against the software behemoth. Coll, who is represented by Hausfeld, is representing a class of Android device users who have used the […]

Metaverse

Spotlight: Step into the metaverse with Bird & Bird

After the excitement of new technologies such as NFTs, AI, and 5G comes the slow and arduous legal work of finding out who owns what and who’s getting paid; this is where Bird & Bird’s intellectual property team steps in. The market: Standard-essential patents (SEPs) are the bread and butter of the IP market, setting technical […]

Alessandro De Nicola

Orrick suffers second Italian hit with 15-lawyer loss to BonelliErede

Orrick Herrington & Sutcliffe has been hit by a second mass defection in Italy this week, seeing a 15-lawyer team leave to join BonelliErede just days after another group moved to Hogan Lovells. The BonelliErede joiners will strengthen the firm’s risk, compliance and investigations (RCI) group, as well as its IP, privacy and IT team […]

Hilton

Claim spotter: IP clash breaks out in Big Pharma, while Hilton takes on Zurich

Pharma wars: Hampshire firm takes on Aspirin producer An IP battle has begun between Hampshire-headquartered Aspire Pharma and German behemouth Bayer after the former filed a part 7 ‘patents and registered designs’ claim on Wednesday 7 February. Bayer is one of the largest pharmaceutical companies in the world, responsible for products including Aspirin, Claritin and Rennie, […]

Patents copyright

AutoStore v Ocado saga nears end as patents appeal dropped

A confidential settlement was reached by Norwegian storage robotics company AutoStore Technology last week, just days before its appeal was due to be heard in the Business and Property Courts, The Lawyer can reveal. After losing its UK patents in a 2023 judgment in favour of Ocado – which had been the subject of IP […]

Gherkin Kirkland

Paul Weiss hires ninth partner from Kirkland

Kirkland & Ellis has lost another partner to Paul Weiss’s burgeoning London office, this time in intellectual property. Partner John Patten is set to move firms and join his former Kirkland colleagues at Paul Weiss. IP specialist Patten has been at Kirkland since 2018 and was promoted to its partnership in 2021. His practice focuses […]

Allen Overy

A&O to expand cyber team with Norton Rose Fulbright hires

Allen & Overy is set to bulk up its data security and litigation team with new hires from Norton Rose Fulbright. Ffion Flockhart is joining the magic circle firm, The Lawyer has learnt, having co-led Norton Rose’s global data protection, privacy and cybersecurity practice. Flockhart is a lifer at Norton Rose and was given the […]

Bird & Bird

Bird & Bird defends in first-ever oral hearing in UPC

Bird & Bird is set to defend a life sciences patent dispute in September in what will be the first-ever oral hearing before the brand new Unified Patent Court (UPC). The UPC was created to unify patent litigation across the European Union, meaning cases can be heard in one court instead of individual jurisdictions. The […]

Lewis Silkin merges with patent boutique

Lewis Silkin has acquired patent and trademark firm Miller Sturt Kenyon (MSK). An 11-strong team including 4 patent attorneys will join the mid-tier firm, with MSK managing director Andy Cloughley and director Matthew Turner joining as partners. Lewis Silkin previously acquires patent firm Ablett & Stebbing in 2019. Lewis Silkin joint managing partner Jo Farmer […]

Bristows to open in Dublin

Bristows is set to open a hub in Dublin this summer to assist its quest to be the first firm through the doors of the new Unified Patent Court (UPC), opening 1 June 2023. The UPC will be a new patent court common to 17 European Union (EU) member states with exclusive jurisdiction over European […]

St Pauls Cathedral, London

Quinn launches City IP practice with Pinsents hire

Quinn is launching an intellectual property litigation practice in London later this year after recruiting partner David Lancaster. Lancaster joins from Pinsent Masons where he has been for over four years and before that, he was a barrister for the earlier part of his career. He has experience in all aspects of contentious intellectual property […]