Brands and Trade Marks

We work with clients on a wide range of engagements relating to brands and trade marks, including for example:

  • analysis of portfolios
  • brand creation and protection
  • brand and trade mark strategy
  • challenges to competitor trade marks
  • commercial arrangements with trade marks
  • defending trade marks
  • due diligence
  • enforcing trade marks against competitors
  • examination (prosecution) of trade marks to have them granted by national patent offices
  • freedom to operate (infringement clearance) advice and strategy
  • internal processes you can use for creating brands and trade marks and managing them
  • international trade mark applications
  • licensing
  • maintenance and renewal of trade marks
  • managing your trade mark portfolio / estate
  • Non-Use Applications and Defense
  • monitoring competitor activity
  • Oppositions before the Trade Marks Office
  • ownership advice
  • preparing and filing trade mark applications
  • protection strategies
  • searching and surveillance for infringements of your trade marks
  • trade mark disputes including oppositions and litigation

Insights relating to brands and trade marks

The Quiet Decay: Why IP Value Slips When No One Is Watching

Intellectual property rarely fails loudly. It fails in the gap between filing and follow-through — the priority date no one re-checked, the order no one renewed, the AI agent no one supervised. This month’s posts make one point together: the threat to your most valuable…

Your IP Strategy Is Only as Good as Your Board’s Questions

A McKinsey study found that 44% of directors said their boards simply reviewed and approved management’s proposed strategies—and only 10% felt they fully understood the industry dynamics they were governing. For IP-intensive businesses, that gap is expensive. Inventions, brands, data and know-how are often the…

When the Monopoly Ends, Your Shape Has to Stand on Its Own

A registered design buys you a finite head start, not a permanent moat. When it lapses, competitors are free — and, the law says, encouraged — to copy. The Federal Court’s decision in Bodum AG v H.A.G Import Corpn (Australia) Pty Ltd [2026] FCA 238…

Built Before the Fight: What May’s IP Decisions Reward

Strip the case names away and one pattern runs through this month’s posts: the decisive moment in an IP matter almost never happens in the courtroom. It happens years earlier — in the words drafted into a claim, the honesty of a brand at first…

You Can’t Backdate Honesty

A catchy name and a fast start built a billion-dollar lending business — but neither could rescue the trade mark when it mattered most. Australia’s High Court has now confirmed that the “honest concurrent use” defence to trade mark infringement is judged at the moment…