Dispute settled successfully at the Intellectual Property Enterprise Court

Harper James’ Intellectual Property team has settled a client’s claim at the Intellectual Property Enterprise Court (IPEC) for "a substantial sum" backed by court orders.

The IPEC was recently set up as a cheaper and faster alternative to the Patents Court for SMEs who wish to raise or challenge a dispute about their intellectual property.

Our client was an investor-backed brand, who was experiencing fast growth. They were horrified to discover that a former supplier had started selling a competitor’s product using advertisements that still featured their business name.

Intellectual Property Solicitor, Lindsay Gledhill, worked on the case and recommended that our client pursued this case in the IPEC.

Lindsay said: "This was a case where our initial letters did not resolve the matter, so we had little choice but to begin court proceedings. I recommended the IPEC as our forum for two main reasons.

"Firstly, proceedings are “front-loaded”. You can put most of the evidence to the court and your opponent at an early stage whilst it’s fresh, and the court holds a “case management conference” within a few months to consider it and to consider the evidence in reply.

"It’s very common for cases to settle at around the time of this case management conference and that’s what happened here.

"Secondly, there’s a limit on the amount of costs that each side can be ordered to pay the other of £50k. I believed that as a low-cost law firm, we would be able to stay well within that limit even though we had four defendants running different defences to the claim. We recovered an unusually high proportion of our costs and our low cost-base gave us a tactical advantage.

"Our client’s investor also appreciated the way our low-cost model and the streamlined court procedures helped us control the amount of management time that was spent on the case."

Read about our Intellectual Property team