Services
Patents
At Tomkins IP, our staff possess a wealth of experience in the filing and prosecution of patent applications and are qualified to represent clients nationally at the Irish, and UK Intellectual Property Offices and at the European Patent Office, enabling us to provide a professional and business focussed service to our clients without the need to engage separate counsel.
Breakdown of services:
- Our patent team can offer the following services:
- Prior art searching and freedom to operate searches;
- Preparing, filing and prosecuting patent applications;
- Obtaining supplementary protection certificates
- Preparing legal documents transferring all intellectual property rights;
- Maintaining your client’s patents;
- Infringement and validity opinions in relating to existing third party rights; and
- Assisting in enforcing your client’s patent rights.
Trade Marks
Tomkins IP provides expertise in the filing, prosecution, maintenance and enforcement of trade mark rights in Ireland, the United Kingdom and Europe. All of our Attorneys are qualified in each of these jurisdictions enabling us to provide a professional and business focused service to our clients.
Breakdown of services:
- Filing and Prosecution of a Trademark Application
- Searching
- Prosecution of Applications
- Oppositions
- Post-Registration
- Renewals
- Revocation actions
- Invalidity actions
- Maintenance
- Intellectual property transfers
- Licensing
- Enforcement of rights
- Infringement
- Passing Off
Further information >>
Design
Attorneys on our design right team possess a wealth of experience in the filing and prosecution of design applications. Our Attorneys are qualified to represent clients nationally at the Irish, and UK Intellectual Property Offices and throughout Europe via the Registered Community Design regime administered by the OHIM.
Our expert attorneys have the skill to identify any features of your products that may be protected by means of registered or unregistered design rights. Moreover, we can advise you in relation to matters of ownership of design right and provide agreements transferring ownership of design rights from employees/contractors.
We can assist in advising you as to your options when your design right has been copied.
Breakdown of services:
Our design team can offer the following services:
- Advising on how best to obtain design protection for your products in Europe;
- Advising if your product is entitled to unregistered design right in Europe;
- Preparing, filing and prosecuting design applications;
- Preparing legal documents transferring all registered and unregistered design right to the appropriate party;
- Clearance searching prior to a product launch;
- Infringement and validity opinions in relating to existing third party design rights; and
- Assisting in enforcing your design rights.
Copyright
Our Copyright team can help clients identify both existing and potential assets that may enjoy copyright protection under Irish law, with a particular focus on the copyright that resides in software. Our attorneys can advise on ownership issues as they relate to copyright residing in existing assets and on ownership issues that relate to copyright that may arise from pending projects. We can also assist with the exploitation of these assets through licenses or assignments.
Breakdown of services:
Our copyright team offer the following services:
- Advising on software development agreements, including the issue of ownership of copyright in any software developed by contractors.
- Auditing your business to identify assets that may enjoy copyright.
- Advising on agreements that license or assign assets protected by copyright to third parties.
- Advising on agreements that license or assign assets protected by copyright from third parties.
Other Services
As IP becomes an increasingly significant business asset, the need for an integrated suite of associated services has never been more important. To meet this need, Tomkins offers a wide range of value added IP services to our clients, including IP Audits, IP Searching and IP workshops.
IP Audits
Tomkins offer an IP Auditing service to ensure clients are maximising the revenue available from their IP. An IP analysis will identify what assets are owned by a client, and advise how these assets can be best protected and be effectively exploited. We can also identify further opportunities for individual assets in an IP portfolio through partnering, licensing and other means. The analysis will also assess whether those registered IP assets are of sufficient value to warrant the cost of their upkeep.
We can also advise on any tax related issues which may be available to a client, liasing where necessary with financial advisors to ensure that the maximum return is derived from an investment in research and development.
IP Searching
We have vast experience in performing a variety of searches for all types of IP.
Our trade mark search service provides an indication as to whether an unregistered trademark is likely to be registerable and/or to infringe third party rights. We can also provide trade mark watching services, which will provide advance warning of applications filed for potentially conflicting marks, allowing you an opportunity to oppose such applications, thereby protecting your rights in your trade mark.
Our patent novelty search service involves conducting a prior art patent search, and advising on the likelihood of securing a granted patent in view of the prior art found, as well as the possible scope of protection that such a patent might provide.
Tomkins can also facilitate infringement clearance patent searches, where a client wishes to be aware of third party patent rights in a particular technological area prior to undertaking significant investment in an invention. This is generally carried out through engaging the services of an established outside searching agency to perform the search, with the analysis of the search results being performed in-house.
Our design search service provides feedback as to whether identical or similar designs to the design of interest exist, and thus whether the design is likely to be validly registerable and/or be liable to infringe third party design rights.
We can also perform searches for patents granted in a particular technology area. This information can assist in making decisions such as a patenting strategy, whether to license-in technology, or for assessing the validity of a granted patent, in cases where there is an allegation of infringement of the patent.
Enforcement of IP Rights
We can advise on all aspects related to the enforcement of IP Rights. This includes advising clients who have been threatened with infringement, as well as those clients who consider their IP Rights to have been infringed. Should the matter require the involvement of legal practitioners, such as a solicitor or barrister, we can liase with our trusted experts in the area.
IP Education
Tomkins can offer a wide range IP seminars and workshops to clients. These can be tailored to meet the specific requirements of the client, and to cover any aspect of IP, ranging from for example a general overview of IP, how to identify potential IP, and how to perform online IP searches.
General IP Advice
Tomkins has a wealth of experience in advising on all aspects of IP law, such as for example ownership and inventorship issues.
As our professionals are qualified to practice before the Irish Patents Office, the UK Intellectual Property Office, the European Patent Office and the Community Trade Mark Office (OHIM), we can also advise on the particular nuances of Irish, UK, PCT and European Patent, Trademark Design and Copyright Law.
Due Diligence
Tomkins can assist with due diligence procedures, in order to provide the evaluation of an IP portfolio necessary for transactions such as mergers, sales or acquisitions. This involves analyzing, documenting and evaluating all IP assets and ascertaining the strength of each, as well as the duration of each right. This diligence exercise can be performed either with Tomkins acting as an independent party, or in conjunction with in-house auditors.
IP Status Checks
Our firm can perform all manner of status checks for IP, such as a determination as to the current status of the IP, an analysis of the IP family, or a watching service for changes in the status of an IP right.
