The Patent 1000 focuses exclusively on patent practice and has firmly established itself as the definitive 'go-to' resource for those seeking world-class legal patent expertise.
Silver - Firms: prosecution
With over 130 years of stellar work behind it, Withers & Rogers is one of the United Kingdom’s best-known and most respected IP prosecution outfits, and is gradually expanding its footprint across Europe via branch offices in Paris and Munich. Boasting top clients in electronics, life sciences and engineering, the group works with innovators to confect the most commercial and creative solutions and strategies, when both filing patents and defending them. Setting the standard is Karl Barnfather, a senior member of the electronics, computing and physics group known for his inventive strategies and record of success before the EPO, particularly in the tricky area of software and computer-implementedinventions.
Bronze - Firms
Withers & Rogers is one of Europe’s largest dedicated IP law firms, with offices in London, Paris and Munich, as well as three other regional offices in the United Kingdom. Established more than 130 years ago, the firm remains as passionate as ever about making intellectual property work to the clients’ best advantage. Today, clients include many renowned, innovative organisations from across Europe, North America and Asia.
Specialist teams
Withers & Rogers has four core practice groups:
- advanced engineering;
- electronics, computing and physics;
- life sciences and chemistry; and
- trademarks.
The firm has an outstanding breadth and depth of experience and expertise, with over 100 patent and trademark professionals. Alongside the practice groups above, the firm has a number of specialist sector groups, enabling it to pool industry knowledge and bring added value for its clients. Some examples of its specialist sector groups are packaging, medical technology, aerospace & defence and road, rail & marine.
All of Withers & Rogers’ patent and trademark attorneys are selected on the basis of excellent academic achievement and industry knowledge. They, along with the firm’s registered design attorneys, advise on the protection and enforcement of IP rights for inventions, brands, and designs. Withers & Rogers has extensive commercial and industrial experience, and the team’s technical expertise spans all major technologies.
A comprehensive service
Withers & Rogers offers a comprehensive service that extends to both securing IP rights – such as patents, trademark and design registrations for the United Kingdom, Europe and further afield – and advising on their exploitation and enforcement.
Withers & Rogers is most renowned for its work in strategic intellectual property. The firm builds strategies for clients that embrace critical areas such as innovation culture, due diligence, freedom to operate, invention management, and patent mapping, to name but a few.
Withers & Rogers also handles renewals on behalf of its clients, enabling them to devote more time to other parts of their business. The renewals team serves a global client base across a huge variety of industries and the network of local patent attorneys and renewal agents around the world gives it a truly global reach.
Alongside this, the firm provides proactive support functions that help clients keep track of their intellectual property, stay on top of maintenance and stay in control of cost. This ensures clients receive a service that delivers both technical excellence and commercial insight.
Experience
Withers & Rogers is a market leader in the drafting and prosecution of patent applications and in oral proceedings (hearings) in both opposition and appeal procedures at the European Patent Office. The firm acts extensively before both the UK Intellectual Property Office and the European Patent Office. The firm’s contentious practice team has significant experience of conducting litigation in the UK courts and jointly with attorneys in other European jurisdictions.
The firm also has experience of advising clients on implementing working strategies to maximise commercial gain from inventions, while keeping costs to a minimum. A number of its clients require a flexible approach to handling their portfolios, including maintaining their databases for them.
International by nature
A truly international practice, Withers & Rogers maintains an established worldwide network of contacts including both trusted foreign IP law firms and direct clients.
As well as filing and prosecuting applications at the European and UK Patent Offices, the Munich office enables the firm to act before the German Patent Office, so it can be a single point of contact for three of the key patent granting authorities in Europe.
With attorneys fluent in most of the official European languages, together with its offices in Munich and Paris, Withers & Rogers is ideally positioned to work with any European jurisdiction.
Jurisdiction