Brookes Batchellor, Patent and Trade Mark Attorneys based in Clerkenwell, London and in Tunbridge Wells, Kent, had a great time answering queries about intellectual property at the Kent & London Business Show last Friday. As always, we were unsurprised at the wide range of levels of awareness about intellectual property and its importance to growing companies.

Some company owners had said that they’d been so busy building their businesses, and getting their trading names into the minds of potential customers, that they’d not given any thought to how they might stop competitors “free riding” by adopting similar names. In some cases it seems that the people we spoke to still have the chance to get a good registered trade mark for their chosen trading style if they act quickly, but in some other cases the choice of descriptive words, or existing IPR, will make gaining strong protection more difficult. In some cases a change of brand name may be required before any further investment.

We also met company owners who had already registered their trade marks in the UK, but were already thinking about expanding their trading activities into Europe and around the world. Would they be able to register the same trade marks in the rest of the world? Answering that question comprehensively always takes a little time to answer, and reminds us of the importance of conducting a trade mark search over as wide an area – geographically and commercially – as you think you will ever reasonably need.

We were also glad to advise show visitors who had inventions that they were thinking of patenting, and inventions already patented, that they were planning to exploit. A reminder us again of the whole point of IP protection – to ensure that the creators of new ideas get the commercial benefit of them.