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Intellectual Property

Our market-leading intellectual property team is the largest dedicated IP team in the UK. CMS was Awarded ‘Best Law Firm in IP, IT & TMT’ at the Trends Legal Awards in 2019. We house one of London’s most experienced and formidable IP litigation practices. Uniquely among large law firms, we also offer a significant patent, trade mark and design attorney team with true technical and legal expertise. And of course we help our clients in complex licensing and exploitation in the world’s most highly regulated sectors. Our team has earned multiple Band 1 ratings from legal directories.

Our team includes 130 lawyers, patent attorneys, trade mark attorneys, and specialist IP administrators and paralegals. This means our team is qualified to file complex patents in cutting-edge technologies at the European Patent Office; manage and enforce portfolios for some of the world’s biggest brand owners; and handle the most complex and technically demanding IP disputes.

We handle the full life-cycle of IP assets, including finding the best strategy for the creation, identification, registration and capture of assets, their realisation through commercial agreements and licensing, and their protection and enforcement through litigation and other dispute resolution.

A cohesive IP strategy, including both commercialisation and enforcement, will ensure that maximum value is obtained from your IP portfolio. Our team understands your business needs and objectives and has worked with some of the world’s best known brands. Our clients include organisations from banks to technology companies, pharmaceuticals to FMCG, and we help them realise their commercial goals.

We also advise on IP enforcement at all levels of UK courts (civil and criminal) and have experience litigating before the CJEU as well as many national courts of the EU and beyond in multi-jurisdictional disputes. Our patent and trade mark teams are experienced in dealing with proceedings before UKIPO, EUIPO and European Patent Office.  Costs can quickly escalate in contentious proceedings, so project management is key to our service, driving forward cases, narrowing issues, and managing other service providers.

"CMS' intellectual property department is 'excellent for high level and complex questions', and offers 'a good mix of very sound legal advice and practical tips'. The 'personable and easy to work with' team comprises of 25 partners, following the merger of CMS, Nabarro and Olswang in May 2017, and attracts praise for its 'good pragmatic commercial advice' across the spectrum of IP rights."

Legal 500, 2019

“Among firms in London, CMS is virtually unrivalled in terms of the breadth, depth, international reach and technical sophistication of its brands practice.”

World Trademark Review 1000, 2019

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Design is at the heart of innovation – and robust legal protection for design rights is vital for design-led businesses across all sectors.. Our
Due Diligence
Intellectual Property (IP) rights are commonly bought, sold or licensed as part of a corporate deal or transaction, and often represent a key element
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Life Sciences Regulatory
Legal and regulatory frameworks are constantly evolving in the life sciences sector to keep up with innovative therapies, diagnostics and other medica
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Patents
The CMS patent team combines patent litigation with one of the largest patent attorney practices within a full-service law firm in Europe, to offer a
Trade Marks
Trade Marks
Our trade mark lawyers are experts in the UK, EU and beyond. We have the largest trade mark team in the UK. The team is made up of solicitors, tr
Law-Now: Intellectual Property
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18/01/2024
EP Case Law in Brief: Commercial success and inventive step
“Commercial success alone is not to be regarded as indicative of inventive step, but evidence of immediate commercial success when coupled with evidence of a long-felt want is of relevance provided...
29/11/2023
10 CMS partners recognised by Lexology Client Choice Awards 2023
International law firm CMS is pleased to announce that 10 of its partners, across nine different countries, have been recognised by the Lexology Client Choice Awards 2023:Nick Beckett, China, Life Sci­ences Car­oline...
23/11/2023
Patentability of AI inventions: High Court offers a helping hand (Emotional...
Is a deep learning AI system which recommends similar songs to its users patentable? Or is it a computer program ‘as such’ and therefore excluded under s.1(2)(c) Patents Act 1977? The High Court has...
21/11/2023
EP Case Law in Brief: Proof of common general knowledge
It is a common sight for a patent attorney – an EPO Examiner acknowledges that a claim is novel, but asserts a lack of inventive step over ‘D1’ in combination with ‘common general knowledge’...
16/11/2023
CMS and IPDefine Announce Global Patent Initiative
International law firm CMS, in collaboration with patent AI specialist IPDefine Ltd., have developed a cutting-edge turnkey solution which is poised to make intellectual property monetisation more accessible...
07/11/2023
Description amendments at the EPO – the Appellant agrees with the need...
Description amendments bringing the content of the description in line with the allowed claims remain a controversial topic in the European practice. As reported previously, the Board of Appeal in T0056/21...
16/10/2023
Beyond the language barrier
Getting the deal done | 8 min read Getting an M&A deal over the line is a big task in any context. The task is even greater when a transaction involves multiple jurisdictions, people and cultures. Understanding the bigger picture and commercial objectives makes it easier to focus on the legal provisions that really matter. This article sets out the main differences and challenges cross-border transactions present and the key factors that determine dealmaking success.
06/10/2023
The European Patent Office (EPO) ‘10-day rule’
By the Decision of the Administrative Council of 13 October 2022, a number of Rules of the Implementing Regulations to the European Patent Convention have been amended. These include Rule 126 (Notification...
28/09/2023
EP Case Law in Brief: Erroneous Disclosures
“Mistakes in a document do not in themselves constitute prior art such as to prevent the grant of a patent.”So begins section I.C. 4.9 of the Case Law of the Boards of Appeal. This statement, and...
25/09/2023
Is Unitary Patent protection a silver bullet for securing value of IP rich...
Increasing the effectiveness of patent protection across multiple jurisdictions | 6 min read The value of the intellectual property in IP-rich businesses is a key consideration in any proposed deal. But is the new Unitary Patent protection system preferable over existing national patent rights for protecting IP value? The answer is not a simple one but what is clear is that investing time and resources into a Unitary Patent protection strategy could have a significant pay-off for a patent-rich business.
12/09/2023
CMS European Class Actions Report 2023
Data-driven insights into class action risk across Europe, a key concern for major corporates
15/08/2023
AI in healthcare inventions – technical or not technical?
SummaryRecent European Patent Office (EPO) Board of Appeal case T 1910/20 sits among a number of decisions regarding the discussion of what constitutes technical character in the field of healthcare...