Trade Mark Audits & Portfolio Management

From the point we are instructed to take responsibility for a portfolio, we actively engage with your business’ culture and priorities to ensure that your brand protection strategy is tailored accordingly.

As part of the onboarding process, we undertake an audit of your trade mark portfolio. To start the audit process, CMS will collate questions for use at interviews with key stakeholders in your business, for example, innovation teams, new product leads and your marketing team. The aim of the interviews is to learn from you about your product offerings, the biggest challenges your business faces and the concerns that are most pertinent to your business. CMS will also conduct its own review of marks and logos in use on your website, social media feeds, primary advertising and in report and accounts.

We will then prepare a detailed report, addressing the issues/gaps identified in the trade mark portfolio. Our review will be focused on key objectives, identifying: gaps in trade mark coverage; any obvious vulnerabilities to non-use or bad faith attacks; potential efficiencies, such as non-renewal, or consolidation of ownership (while being mindful of tax considerations); vulnerabilities to infringement; and gaps in infringement, monitoring and enforcement practices. The report will contain a series of concise recommendations, with costings and options for any recommended new filings alongside notes of those marks that should be allowed to lapse or be proactively withdrawn.

We also continue to monitor your trade mark protection to ensure that it keeps pace with business developments and changes in the legal landscape. We will proactively advise you of changes that may be required along the way, such as gap filling exercises or efficiencies that can be made by allowing older trade marks to lapse.

Our Trade Mark team regularly assists in corporate transactions, so also undertakes formal due diligence exercises in the context of asset and business sales and purchases. We are flexible in how we interact with clients and ensure our reporting style meets your business and stakeholders’ needs. We offer a 24/7 client extranet where you can view the status of your portfolio in real time. We will also work with you to create the bespoke reports that you need for internal reporting and management. We understand that stakeholders often want a snapshot of brands, rather than a lengthy document, so we regularly compile data on brand protection and enforcement in visual form.

View our Trade Marks team
 

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