Posts Tagged: "trademark attorneys"

Fish & Richardson announced that Elizabeth King has joined the firm’s Houston office as Of Counsel in its Trademark and Copyright Group. King has nearly 25 years of experience practicing law, the last 20 of which have been focused on domestic and international trademark law; she is also a well-known expert on non-traditional trademark protection strategies.

Conley Rose, PC announced the promotion of Darlene F. Ghavimi to the position of Principal for 2018.  Ms. Ghavimi primarily represents clients in contentious and complex patent and trademark litigation.  She also has extensive experience in patent and trademark preparation and prosecution, infringement opinions, licensing, technology transfer, and client counseling related to patent and trademark issues.  

Alston & Bird LLP has announced the election of 21 lawyers to its partnership, effective January 1, including 6 of whom are new partners based in the firm’s Intellectual Property Area: Adam D. Swain, Helen Su, Nadya Sand, Chris Lightner, Christopher B. Kelly, Thomas Davison.

Leason Ellis LLP is pleased to announce that patent attorneys Safet Metjahic and Dr. Paul M. Zagar have joined the firm as Partners and Lauren Beth Emerson, a trademark and copyright attorney, has joined as Counsel.

The trademark landscape is evolving rapidly, with both brand owners and trademark professionals trying to keep up. The changes are mostly driven by the steep rise in trademark applications — there was a 13.7% increase in trademark filing activity in 2015, according to WIPO — and shrinking budgets as all involved are tasked with doing more with the same or fewer resources. Trademark professionals and brands alike need to be consistent in the way they approach search and make use of the same practices they have used in the past to avoid risk, while considering challenges they face and the way that the trademark landscape is evolving.

Fenwick & West, a leading technology and life sciences law firm, announced that Jeffrey H. Greene has joined the firm as a trademark partner in its New York office. Greene joins Fenwick’s international trademark practice, ranked by numerous organizations as one of the top trademark practices globally for strategic trademark counseling and protection, where he will counsel clients on all aspects of global trademark portfolio management.

The idea of brand value is evolving. Trademark lawyers must be concerned with everything that contributes to the protection of a brand, not just its trademarks. Protecting a brand now includes a number of issues that were simply not relevant to the role twenty years ago, such as: trademarks in domain names; the use of trademarks online; trademarks used in social media handles; and trademarks being mentioned in general online commentary.

My fellow Australian patent attorney Andy Mukherji recently asked the question on this site: Are Australia’s listed IP firms doomed to fail? Doubtless the hyperbole was intentional, but Andy raises a fair point. The Australian IP professions – registered patent and trade marks attorneys (who, for the most part, would be recognized as patent agents rather than attorneys in the US) and IP lawyers – are currently engaged in what might well be regarded as a brave and daring experiment. Prior to 15 April 2013 the regulatory regime in Australia did not even permit patent attorneys to incorporate. Now, less than four years later, not only have many firms chosen to take up the option of incorporation, but Australia now has (to the best of my knowledge) the largest number of publicly-listed IP firms per capita in the world!