Our Intellectual Property Group advises clients on growing their "information capital", which is very often their most valuable property. A client’s intangible (but certainly not invisible) assets include its brand equity, which draws and retains customers, its patented technology, which makes it a market leader, its copyrighted software, which gives it niche advantages, its designs, which give it the visual edge and its trade secrets.

The members of our IP Group help clients to shape and leverage these assets into powerful tools to strengthen their market position. We have advised clients how to form trade-mark portfolios with strong "families" of trade-marked brands and build a formidable wall of enforceable patents. We have counselled clients how to maximize their position in licensing negotiations and we have represented clients in litigation and other disputes over the violation of claimed rights in intellectual property.

But knowing how to obtain registrations of valuable intellectual property and knowing what procedures to use to remedy violations of these registrations are merely the price of entry. The members of the IP Group see the law as a tactical tool which enables them to contribute to a client's overall strategic goals and success. As an example, we have assisted a client in obtaining novel insurance coverage to enable it to finance expensive litigation to enforce its patent portfolio.

Our counsel has been sought by clients in all fields of endeavour. Our lawyers have helped clients in the health field acquire technology and license their discoveries of new tests. We have counselled clients in the sporting goods industry on building and using a worldwide patent portfolio to leverage their huge investment in product research into strong market share. We have represented clients in the apparel industry and the pulp and paper business wishing to protect the integrity of their brands against competitors.

E-commerce offers new opportunities for our clients and poses new challenges to our IP Group. We have counselled clients on the interface between domain names and trade-marks, created model web site development and service agreements for Internet solution providers and advised clients on encryption issues and web database protection.