Corporate IP Support & Outsourcing

Resolving your resource shortage without the permanent overheads

Whether it’s patent or trade mark attorneys, trainees or paralegals, our secondees will quickly become an extension of your in-house team for as little or as long as you require.

We can act like an ‘on-call’ external in-house attorney to:

• Draft applications
• File applications
• Prepare and file examination report responses
• Handle opposition and appeal cases

Each task can be dealt with on an individual basis and, if appropriate, carried out on a fixed or capped cost to keep budgets predictable. If you prefer, we can work with your in-house attorneys and paralegals in preparing work that they would be happy to file.

If appropriate, we can work with your docketing system, to keep input from in-house attorneys and paralegals to a minimum while allowing you to maintain oversight of what is being done.

We also recognise a secondment is not just about the attorneys, so Barker Brettell offers peer-to-peer support from our paralegal and professional support teams to yours. A number of our paralegals have been on secondment, and our professional support teams can provide direct paralegal-to-paralegal support for clients.

Each secondment is unique and the requirements are varied, but to give you an indication of our scope, here are some examples of what seconded Barker Brettell attorneys have been tasked with:

• Running a patent department while the business recruited a permanent team
• Acting as an extension of the client’s in-house team, supporting it as it expanded, and covering maternity leave in the legal team
• Being on-site to give IP advice and lead workshops during a client’s product development and formulation process
• Supporting client in-house IP leads as they deliver other major projects
• Co-ordinating all international work outside the Americas and China
• Assisting in budgeting, forecasting and pipeline projects; assessment, strategising and streamlining of IP clearance; and prosecution and management of brands by the level of commercial importance
• Drafting patent specifications ready for the client to file or filing on the client’s behalf
• Advising in straightforward terms on the prospects of European patent applications during prosecution
• Helping improve IP-related administration processes by introducing a paralegal workflow process to an internal docketing and case management system, and producing a suite of standard letters to send to external IP attorneys
• Identifying IP opportunities for a startup client

Ad-hoc projects

We regularly take on extra projects that, in addition to their normal work, would overload an in-house corporate IP team. This includes:

• Running patent and trade mark oppositions for corporate IP departments
• Assignment or name change projects
• Drafting batches of patents
• FTO work and fast-tracked clearance on product and campaign launch

Please get in touch if you would like to chat about how we can support your team with our secondment resources.