Intellectual Property services for charities

We understand that a charity’s brand is one of its most valuable assets. In a growing and competitive sector, protecting and leveraging your intellectual property (IP) is vital to building and maintaining your reputation, raising public awareness, and achieving your goals.

Our specialist IP solicitors provide practical and budget-conscious guidance to help charities protect, manage, and exploit their IP effectively. We know that charities often have competing priorities, so we take the burden of IP management off your hands, letting you focus on your mission.

IP Audit and Strategy

We can help you identify, protect, and future-proof your IP assets with our detailed audit and strategy services:

IP Audit: a thorough review of your company IP, including:

  • What they’ve got
  • Who created it
  • Who owns it
  • Whether it is protected

IP strategy: a roadmap for aligning your IP with your goals, covering:

  • Review of the audit with
  • Identifying gaps in IP
  • Identify risk
  • Creating an awareness of the important of a healthy IP culture
  • Budgeting for protection
  • A protection strategy timeline
  • Board responsibility for IP

Trade mark portfolio management

We can file national trade mark applications which protect brands and help stop others who are using an identical or confusingly similar name or logo. We also maintain national and international trade mark portfolios for charities at rates which are competitive with known trade mark attorneys.

We have a nettork of international trade mark firms which enables us to manage portfolios for our international charity clients and provide a one-stop shop.

Recent successes include:

  • Protecting the trade marks of a national charity.
  • Registering refreshed logos for a local charity following a rebrand.

Dispute work

While we aim to minimise conflicts, sometimes enforcement is necessary. Our approach balances firm protection of your brand with sensitivity to your charity’s values and reputation.

Recently, we have:

  • Acted for a local charity to gently warn off a third party which was getting too close to our charity’s brand.
  • Acted for a national charity which needed to take a firmer stance against a business which was actively attempting to trade off our charity’s reputation.
  • Issued take down notices through domain hosting companies to stop cybersquatting, brand infringement and copyright infringement.
  • Defended a local charity client against Getty Images claims.

Commercial use of IP

Your brand can be a source of income for your charity. We can help structure agreements that allow you to capitalise on your IP.

Recent projects include:

  • Drafting sponsorship agreements for a national charity;
  • Facilitating collaboration agreements for a local charity and a third party research company;
  • Helped a national charity assign its brand into a holding company;
  • Licensing a national charity’s brand to local operators while maintaining brand integrity;
  • Recording transfer of trade marks at the UK Intellectual Property Office.

Whether you need to protect your IP, resolve an issue, or unlock its commercial potential, our IP team is here to help. Contact Laura Trapnell at [email protected] or call 01202 338 590 to discuss how we can support your charity.

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