Can you trade mark the word Bath? Not on its own, as the many businesses using the city's name on everything from soap to rugby shirts have discovered, and the question is a good introduction to intellectual property law in Bath. A geographical name can rarely be monopolised, but a distinctive logo, a combined name or a product's shape can be, and an intellectual property solicitor in Bath spends much of the week advising tourism, food and craft businesses on what can and cannot be registered.
The city's larger intellectual property is less visible than its shopfronts. Bath is a publishing centre, with magazines and websites whose business is copyright, licensing and the contracts of many freelance writers and photographers. Its software and games companies live on code and the licences that govern it. The University of Bath's engineering, pharmacy and materials research produces patents and spin-out companies, and the enterprise programmes attached to the universities send a steady stream of founders to solicitors with a prototype and a pitch deck. Bath Spa University's creative graduates need to know who owns a design made for a client, and the engineering consultancies headquartered in the city depend on know-how and confidentiality.
Trade mark and design registrations at the UK Intellectual Property Office, oppositions to conflicting applications, licences and assignments, and non-disclosure agreements are the everyday work of a Bath IP solicitor; infringement mostly ends with a letter and a negotiated settlement. Litigation goes to the Intellectual Property Enterprise Court, with its capped costs and damages limit of £500,000, or to the intellectual property list of the Business and Property Courts in Bristol. Patent applications are drafted with a patent attorney.
Registrations and standard agreements are usually fixed-fee; disputes are charged hourly.
The intellectual property firms serving Bath are listed below, verified firms first. Read what intellectual property law is, the general IP solicitors guide, and the business law solicitors in Bath page for company work.
