Much of what the University of Southampton invents ends up in a company at Southampton Science Park in Chilworth, and much of what those companies own is intangible: a patent on a fibre-optic component, the code behind a sensor, and a licence from the university that says who gets paid when. Intellectual property solicitors in Southampton spend their time on exactly those documents, and on the investment agreements beside them, because an investor's first question is always who owns the technology.
The city has a second kind of intellectual property that is easy to overlook. Ordnance Survey, based at Adanac Park on the edge of Southampton, licenses mapping data to the whole country, and the businesses around it, in geospatial software, marine navigation and environmental data, live on database rights, copyright in software and licence terms rather than on patents. Solent University's media, games and music graduates add the creative side: who owns a game built as a student project, what a freelance designer has actually assigned to a client, and how a band or a studio protects a name.
Trade marks are the everyday work: registering the name of a brewery, a restaurant on Oxford Street or a marine equipment brand at the UK Intellectual Property Office, opposing a confusingly similar application and writing the letter that makes a copier stop. Most disputes end with that letter. A claim that has to be issued usually goes to the Intellectual Property Enterprise Court, where costs are capped and damages are limited to £500,000, which keeps litigation affordable for a small Southampton firm. Patents are generally drafted with a patent attorney, and some marine technology is subject to export controls.
Fixed fees for registrations and standard agreements, hourly rates for disputes, and a free first conversation from many firms.
Intellectual property firms serving Southampton are listed below, verified firms first. Read what intellectual property law covers, the general IP solicitors guide and the business law solicitors in Southampton page.
