Harper James welcomes three new hires to Intellectual Property team

We are very pleased to announce that we have significantly bolstered our intellectual property and trade marks practice with the arrival of three new hires from top-50 law firm Blake Morgan. These new appointments form part of our ambitious plan to double our number of lawyers by hiring 60 new solicitors by 2025.

With a combined experience of over 50 years and listings in Managing IP’s IP Stars and World Trademark Review’s WTR 1000 – Ben Evans, Jill Bainbridge and Claire Bowers all specialise in an array of areas within Intellectual Property and Trade Mark law, and have advised businesses of all sizes, from start-ups through to multinationals.

Partner and Head of Trade Marks, Ben, is a dual-qualified solicitor and Chartered Trade Mark Attorney with over 15 years’ post qualified experience. Specialising in brand strategy, trade mark clearance searching and world-wide trade mark protection, Ben deals with trade mark applications before the UK and World Intellectual Property Offices as well as internationally through a network of agents.

Jill is an Intellectual Property Disputes Partner with over 20 years’ worth of experience in IP protection, strategy, and IP dispute resolution both nationwide and internationally in relation to the full spectrum of rights, including trade marks, patents, copyright and more. Jill also has particular expertise in reputation management.

CITMA-qualified Trade Mark Paralegal, Claire, has nearly 15 years’ experience in handling the day-to-day management of UK, EU, and International trade mark registrations.

Commenting on the appointments, Ben says:

‘It’s great to be joining what is already an incredibly strong intellectual property team at Harper James at a really exciting time. The firm is growing rapidly and seeing increasing client demand for intellectual property advice and in particular brand protection assistance. We bring substantial experience and expertise in brand protection having looked after trade mark portfolios for household names on a worldwide basis for many years.’

Our Founder and CEO, Toby Harper, comments:

‘The calibre of talent we continue to attract at Harper James is amazing and we’re thrilled to welcome Ben, Jill and Claire on board. Their combined breadth of experience and unique skillsets mean that we’re able to broaden our intellectual property and trade mark offerings even further to our existing clients and expanding client base.’

In addition to welcoming the Ben, Jill and Claire to the Intellectual Property team, Harper James was also listed in the Intellectual Property Office UK’s top 100 trade mark representatives (by number of applications filed) as of August 2023.

Versions of this press release were also featured on Trademark Lawyer Magazine, IP Watchdog, The Business Desk, BBP Media, Startups Magazine, Business Leader and Lancashire Business View in September 2023.