If you own a brand, you want to ensure that no one can cash in on your success by copying the unique features that make it recognisable. A trade mark attorney can help you do that.
Last Updated: November 1, 2024
If you own a brand, you want to ensure that no one can cash in on your success by copying the unique features that make it recognisable. A trade mark attorney can help you do that by registering your trade marks, advising you on legal action to protect them and, if necessary, addressing challenges from other trade mark owners and copyists.
The role of a trade mark attorney is varied. Their clients can include individuals, start-ups, SMEs… all the way through to corporate giants. Part of what they do is advising these clients on how best to protect their brands and maximise the value of their IP rights. This might include advising a business owner on what logo they should proceed with, and whether they should make any changes to their trade mark(s) to avoid conflicts with other people’s. A trade mark attorney may conduct initial trade mark searches to do this.
A trade mark attorney can also advise on contentious matters. For example, if there is a dispute with another party about the similarity of brands, a trade mark attorney can help bring, defend or settle the dispute.
Trade mark attorneys also often get involved in other areas of intellectual property law such as registered and unregistered designs (which protect the look and feel of a product), copyright, domain names and unfair competition.
Trade mark attorneys often work in multinational businesses and as part of this, they are often in touch with trade mark and other legal advisers abroad.
A trade mark attorney usually works in a law firm, for example a general law firm with an IP department or a dedicated firm of patent and/or trade mark attorneys. Their clients might be the people or businesses that own brands, or alternatively other lawyers who work “in-house” in a brand-owning company. This means that some trade mark attorneys are themselves employed in-house in the legal or IP department of a company.
Trade mark attorneys must have an eye for detail and the ability to communicate clearly with their clients. Clients might be major corporations or single individuals, so flexibility and tact are important.
Having an understanding of different businesses and even cultures is important, but this is something that grows with experience.
You need a degree, usually a good one (at least a 2:1). The subject isn’t critical, but law is a sensible choice. Modern languages or business studies can also provide a route in, because they give you skills that you’ll find useful as an attorney.
Regardless of whether you join a law firm or the legal department of a company, you’ll need to sit a post-graduate course at either Queen Mary University of London or Bournemouth University, followed by a further course at Nottingham Trent University. These are part-time courses that you do while at work and your employer may pay for them while you work as a trainee trade mark attorney for 2 years to gain the necessary on-the-job experience.
Seeing a brand that you’ve helped create and protect out in the shops, advertised on TV or being used by your favourite sports team – and knowing you helped make that happen.
Trade marks can be worth billions – think Coca-Cola® for example – and so the owners will go to great lengths to enforce and defend their rights. It can all get a bit stressful and there’s no room for mistakes – but, for many people, that’s all part of the excitement.
Watch out for graduate recruitment adverts at your university, or check out job vacancies on the IP Careers jobs board or the CITMA website (CITMA, the Chartered Institute of Trade Mark Attorneys, is the body that represents and supports UK-qualified trade mark attorneys). The websites and LinkedIn pages of individual employers are also a good source of information and often list open or upcoming positions.
You can also just send in an enquiry at any time to a trade mark attorney firm, but some of the bigger ones have an annual recruitment cycle. It’s a competitive field, so you need to stand out: getting work experience in a law firm is a good start or some people start out as IP paralegals and then move into the trade mark attorney training.
The CITMA website also provides more information about how to become a trade mark attorney. Further information and useful links can be found on the Prospects website.