Changes to your intellectual property? Let us know!

It is important that with any intellectual property you own, whether that is patents, registered trademarks or designs, that you update us with any changes that might have occurred within your business which require an update at the relevant intellectual property offices.

What sort of changes do you need to share?

Changes that you need to update us about include changes of ownership of any intellectual property. If you have recently bought, sold or transferred the rights to your intellectual property, this needs to be properly recorded. We also need to know if you’ve taken a licence to use someone else’s intellectual property, or if someone has been given a license to use your rights. If these sorts of changes aren’t recorded on the appropriate Intellectual Property Office registers in a timely manner, you risk losing your valuable IP rights and incurring delays when time is of the essence e.g. when defending your rights in an opposition.

Changes to your business name or address must also be properly recorded on the official record. This is vital, because where a change is not properly recorded, and there have perhaps been several changes over time, you will need to ensure that all changes have been properly documented and that copies of each document, signed by the assignor and the assignee, is available for record Without this, you may face difficulties and delays if you are seeking to sell rights.

If you have been renewing your patent, design or trademark in a lot of countries but have found you’re not really seeing the benefit you’d hoped for in all of those countries, talk to us. You could significantly reduce the costs of your annual renewals fees by abandoning some of those countries whilst retaining the countries that are cost-effective for you.

Let us know if you’ve decided you’re open to licensing a patent. We can have your patent endorsed “Licence of Right” on the IPO register allowing you to save on significant reductions to patent renewal fees.

Finally, be sure to inform us if you have made changes to the look of a trademark or the goods and services in respect of which you use your trademark; if you have made improvements or developments on a product for which you’ve filed a patent application or made changes to a design you’ve registered. You might need to file for new protection to ensure your latest brands and products are properly protected.

It’s always better to be safe than sorry, so if you are in any doubt about changes that may need recording or acting upon, it is worth checking in with us and we can advise you. Email us at mail@pure-ideas.co.uk or call 0203 696 0945 to speak to our friendly team.