IP Disputes

Have you found yourself on the receiving end of a letter of demand?  Does someone think you are stepping on their IP toes?  Or is it your toes and someone is making public use of IP that is similar to yours?  You may find yourself involved in an intellectual property dispute.

The dispute could be between complete strangers, competitors, and becoming more common, between parties within the supply chain, testing relationship boundaries.  Where the parties to a dispute are known to each other and are already in a contractual relationship, the terms of the contract can become critical in the resolution of the dispute.

Central to any IP dispute are issues of unauthorised copying and similarity of IP.  This involves an analysis of evidence showing how each party uses the intellectual property, an analysis of the scope of rights acquired by the intellectual property owner and an assessment as to whether those rights have been infringed.  The dispute may be heard before the relevant IP Office in Australia in the case of an opposition or non-use action.  Or the dispute may be before the Courts.

Whether you are on the offensive by enforcing your intellectual property rights or on the defensive, here are five ways that we can help in the case of an IP dispute:

• Prepare and respond to letters of demand relating to the infringement of registered and unregistered IP rights;

• Conduct litigation relating to the infringement of IP rights and misleading and deceptive conduct;

• Conduct and defend trade mark oppositions in Australia and internationally;

• Advise on domain name disputes including cybersquatting; and

• Negotiate the global settlement of IP disputes, as well as provide infringement advice and undertake investigations into the use of infringing IP in the market place.