The old Truman Brewery on Brick Lane is full of small businesses whose only real asset is an idea: streetwear labels, illustrators, vintage traders with a name people recognise, and food stalls whose recipes and branding are copied the moment they succeed. Intellectual property solicitors in Tower Hamlets see a stream of those businesses once the copying starts, and the advice is usually the same: the trade mark should have been registered before the first market stall, not after the first imitator.
At the other end of the borough the problems are bigger and better funded. The fintech companies clustered around Canary Wharf, including the start-ups at Level39 in One Canada Square, need confidentiality agreements before they speak to investors, assignments that make sure the code written by freelancers actually belongs to the company, software licences and data agreements, and advice on whether a patent is possible at all for what is essentially a business method. Queen Mary University of London at Mile End also produces research and spin-outs that need patents and licences, and the life-sciences plans around the Royal London Hospital in Whitechapel will add more.
In between sit the borough's restaurants and food brands. Brick Lane and Whitechapel have long argued over similar names and copied menus, which raises passing off and trade mark questions that a Tower Hamlets IP solicitor can often settle with a letter rather than a claim.
Where a claim is needed, the Intellectual Property Enterprise Court hears smaller disputes with capped costs and damages limited to £500,000. Registrations are generally fixed-fee work; disputes are charged by the hour.
Firms offering intellectual property advice in Tower Hamlets are listed below, verified firms first. Read what intellectual property law covers, the general guide to IP solicitors, the wider intellectual property solicitors in London page, and for company matters business law solicitors in Tower Hamlets.
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