Appleyard Lees

Appleyard Lees
The Lexicon
Mount Street
Manchester, M2 5NT

T: +44 0161 835 9655
F: +44 0161 835 9654
W: http://www.appleyardlees.com/

Bobby Smithson – Managing Partner – bobby.smithson@appleyardlees.com

LinkedIn - Appleyard Lees IP LLP
Twitter - @AppleyardLees
Facebook - @AppleyardLeesIPLLP

Appleyard Lees is a leading intellectual property law firm, with approximately 70 patent and trademark attorneys and litigators.

Who we are, and what we do – but also, how we do it – makes us distinctive.

We bring broad sector and industry knowledge. Our clients benefit from our professionals’ deep insights into their businesses, operations and objectives.

Our team offers a full spectrum of IP services, including initial strategy and scoping, prosecution, and support should post-grant issues arise. Our commercially intelligent approach to service delivery, incorporates flexibility and adaptability. We strive to be agile, to respond to specific client requirements in a way that suits them.

Working with some of the world’s most exciting innovators, largest companies and household names, the firm supports a broad range of IP owners and creators, including in-house teams, R&D specialists, owner-managers and branding professionals.

Areas of specialisation:

Electronics & Software, Engineering & Physics, Chemistry & Pharmaceuticals and Life Sciences & Biotechnology, Designs, Trade Marks, Litigation and Disputes.

Association memberships:

Institute of Professional Representatives before the European Patent Office (epi), International Association for the Protection of Intellectual Property (AIPPI), Licensing Executives Society (LES), Federation International Des Conseils En Propriete Industrielle (FICPI), Asian Patent Attorneys Association (APAA), American Intellectual Property Law Association (AIPLA), International Trade Mark Association (INTA), Institute of Trade Mark Attorneys (ITMA), European Trade Mark Protection Association (Marques), Pharmaceutical Trade Marks Group (PTMG),  Chartered Institute of Patent Attorneys (CIPA), Marques Cyberspace Committee, Bio Industry Association (BIA), Bionow, PraxisUnico, Association of University Technology Managers (AUTM), China-Britain Business Council (CBBC), INTA Enforcement Committee – Judicial Administration & Trademark Litigation, ACG Anti Counterfeiting Group, ECTA European Communities Trade Mark Association

The Greenshoots IP insights library

Greenshoots is a collection of fresh intellectual property insight, analysis and commentary on the issues that matter most to those who invent, manage and protect intellectual property, written by the IP specialists of Appleyard Lees. View the latest Greenshoots content.

The Greenshoots Podcast by Appleyard Lees

The Greenshoots Intellectual Property Podcast by Appleyard Lees is a conversation about intellectual property, focused on what matters most to innovators, inventors and brand owners, right now.

In each episode, intellectual property specialists discuss the essential issues facing those who create, or protect, IP.

Listen to Greenshoots on all major podcast hosting platforms.

The Unitary Patent and Unified Patent Court

After years of uncertainty, the EU patent package establishing a Unitary Patent (UP) providing EU-wide patent coverage and a Unified Patent Court (UPC) to enforce such patents will enter into force on 1 June 2023. Strategic decisions in relation to existing and future EP patents and applications will need to be made before the EU patent package is implemented.

All applicants, including those based outside the EU, can make use of the system to obtain and enforce patent protection in the participating EU countries. There are no changes to the process of obtaining a European patent via the European patent office (EPO). A UP will be obtained from the EPO after the grant of the European patent.

Find a collection of analysis and discussion on the UP and UPC.

Inside Green Innovation: Progress Report 2022

Our annual  report analyses patent filings across several areas of innovation, including food production, renewable energy, and materials and recycling.

This data-driven report gets behind the rhetoric, to shed light on the state of progress in the development of green technologies. How close are we to finding the technological solutions that will be so important for achieving sustainability? Where, and by whom, are these innovations being developed?

We have attempted to leverage our experience of working with technology experts and the patent system, and to navigate these resources to produce data-driven analysis, and to try to pull back the curtain on the progress of green technologies.

In November 2021, we published the first edition of our report, examining global progress in green innovation, and what it might mean to countries, commerce and the planet.

Such was the response to the report that – this year – we’ve both broadened and refined its scope: along with revisiting the innovation areas of plastics, batteries and food production, the  Inside Green Innovation: Progress Report 2022 includes analyses of technological developments in carbon capture utilisation and storage (CCUS), hydrogen, heat pumps and solar energy, all of which are grouped into the categories of food, materials, and energy.

Appleyard Lees