On a business park outside Sedgefield, a dozen miles south of Durham, companies make radiation detectors, satellite components and printable electronics, and most of what they own is on paper: patents, know-how, licences from the universities and trade marks. NETPark is the obvious home of intellectual property in County Durham, but not the only one. Durham University's physics, chemistry and computer science departments produce spin-outs every year, the Lumiere light festival fills the city with commissioned artworks whose rights must be settled in advance, and the brewers, bakers and makers who trade on the Durham name find that a place name is hard to register and easy for a rival to use.
Intellectual property solicitors in Durham advise on which rights apply and who owns them. For a spin-out that means a licence or assignment from the university, confidentiality agreements before any investor meeting and, with a patent attorney, the patent itself. For a craft producer it means registered designs and trade marks at the UK Intellectual Property Office. For a software company it means contractor agreements that assign the code and customer licences that grant use without ownership. For a photographer or author it means copyright, automatic but still to be proved and defended.
When someone copies a product, a name or a photograph, the solicitor writes the letter before action, and most disputes finish there. Those that continue are usually issued in the Intellectual Property Enterprise Court, where damages are capped at £500,000 and the costs that can be recovered are limited, which keeps a claim affordable for a small County Durham business.
Registrations and routine agreements are fixed-fee; litigation is charged by the hour.
The intellectual property firms within reach of Durham are listed below, verified first. Read what intellectual property law covers and the general IP solicitors guide; for company structure and contracts see business law solicitors in Durham, and for the region's larger IP teams the Newcastle page.
