Nottingham's intellectual property is unusually easy to see. A pharmacy chain founded on Goose Gate in the nineteenth century, the stripes of a Nottingham fashion designer, a swimwear brand known at every Olympics and the miniature armies painted by hobbyists on every continent are all designed and defended from offices in the city. Boots, Paul Smith, Speedo and Games Workshop have intellectual property teams of their own, but the thousands of smaller Nottingham businesses that trade on a name, a design or a piece of software do not, and that is where the city's intellectual property solicitors earn their living.
The spread is wide. The University of Nottingham and Nottingham Trent University generate spin-outs in medicine, materials and engineering that need patents, confidentiality agreements and licences before any investor will talk to them; a life-science cluster in the city centre and the games and creative studios of the Lace Market and Sneinton live on copyright, source code and design rights; and Nottingham is a UNESCO City of Literature, with writers, publishers and illustrators asking who owns what, and whether an artificial-intelligence company may train on their work.
A Nottingham IP solicitor files trade marks and designs at the Intellectual Property Office, drafts licences, assignments and non-disclosure agreements, and writes the letter that usually ends an infringement without litigation. When it does not, smaller claims go to the Intellectual Property Enterprise Court, where damages are capped at £500,000 and recoverable costs are limited, and larger ones to the Business and Property Courts; patent work generally involves a patent attorney alongside the solicitor.
Registrations and standard agreements are usually fixed-fee; disputes are charged by the hour, with an estimate for each stage.
The intellectual property firms serving Nottingham are listed below, verified firms first. Read what intellectual property law covers, the general IP solicitors guide, and for the company side of things business law solicitors in Nottingham.
