It's plenty well known that the most important asset any business possesses (apart from its amazing people) is its IP.  Strangely, many businesses still don't give it the attention it deserves, but they always regret it in the end.

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One reason for this is the confusion around what intellectual property actually is, how it's created and how it can be protected.

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That's where we come in.  You don't really need a detailed knowledge of the difference between trade marks and designs, how long copyright exists and whether or not you should be getting your invention patented.  You do need to be thinking, as early as possible, about what IP you might be creating, who owns it, how you can control and exploit it and what you can do to prevent it from being swiped.

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This can get very complicated, and things aren't always as they might seem in the world of IP.  Registering trade marks and designs, grabbing domain names, asserting ownership of copyright, assigning or licensing rights of use and exploitation, distribution agreements, parallel importation, counterfeiting, brand protection – all these can raise critical issues in the life of a business.

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We manage a bunch of trade mark portfolios in Australia and internationally; conduct search and seizure raids for manufacturers whose products are being pirated by counterfeit imports; advise on brand sponsorships, licence agreements and IP protection strategies; and litigate infringement cases including large scale claims on behalf of movie rights holders against file sharing network users.  We've also run several major test cases in the field of copyright law, including the leading High Court authority on copyright and DVD technology.

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As to whether IP is sexy, like all law students seem to think, yeah actually it is.