Buchanan | IP, Corporate Governance, and M&A Legal Services

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Our expertise —

Intellectual Property

Assets pertaining to knowledge, originality, and branding have rapidly outstripped the importance and value of physical assets such as land, equipment, and inventory. In the 21st century, it is common for intellectual property assets to represent over half of any company’s enterprise value. As such, our comprehensive Intellectual Property services help to protect your business’ competitive advantage and will increase your brand and company value.

Our range of services —

Identifying & Protecting your IP

IP Review, Strategy and Reporting

Thorough strategic analysis of your Intellectual Property environment will solidify your competitive advantage and increase your long-term sustainability. Secure ownership to core IP assets and mitigate IP infringement and counterfeit risks.

IP Training (including training for boards and executive teams)

Good governance demands an understanding of the nuances of Intellectual Property law. This in-turn leads to better strategic management and leadership from the board, executive team and the GC.

Trade Mark Portfolio Management

We’re experienced in managing large trade mark portfolios and helping clients achieve the cost savings and asset protection benefits that come from having a single trusted advisor maintaining a watch over your brand assets.

Patents, Trade Secrets and Confidential Information

An expert strategy that secures rights to your novel ideas and know-how can underpin sustainable revenue and create strong barriers to entry. Monopoly rights conferred by the international patent system may be ideal for a particular invention (e.g. if there is a real threat to reverse-engineering). In other instances, a business may be better served by a thorough system for the management and enforcement of its confidential know-how and trade secrets.

Enforcement of IP rights

The value of a strong stable of IP rights doesn’t reside only in their commercialisation potential but also, the ability to enforce these rights against competitors and unauthorised users. Enforcing your IP enables businesses to preserve your unique.

IP Commercialisation and Licensing

Secure sustainable revenues and a return on your investment into your intangible assets through a broad range of commercialisation activities ranging from licensing, merchandising, sponsorship and spin-off entities.

Trade Marks and Brand Protection

Successful brands are underpinned by robust trade mark strategies. Registration is the only way, at law, to protect your important brands. Whether it’s your distinctive name, logo, tag-line, packaging, shape, sound, colour or even a scent - protect your goodwill against competitors and counterfeiters through our national and international registration services.

Copyright (including advisory in the digital context)

Copyright represents the dominant intangible asset for digital businesses. Securing ownership from all relevant authors (e.g. employees, contractors, alliance partners etc) is essential for driving enterprise value and arming the business against copycats.

Designs

Often overlooked, registered designs represent an important class of IP assets for businesses involved in the design of distinctive products. Our scope of services relating to designs include design registration services, licensing agreements, sale agreements, enforcement and advising on technical design/copyright overlap issues.

Domain Name Ownership and Dispute Resolution

Domain names are a logical extension to your brand strategy. Just as it is important to protect your key domains, an eye should always be kept on the market to ensure competitors are not seeking a free-ride off your investment in your goodwill via the use domain names that closely resemble your brands.

Advised the business on a range of governance, commercial law and trade mark issues including the development of a strong founders’ agreement.

Delivered, 2017

“Buchanan worked closely with the founders to establish a clear legal framework for the effective governance of our business at a time when we restructured and introduced a new investor into our specialist coffee group. Buchanan is always accessible and committed to ensuring his services are aligned with our commercial outcomes.”

— Sam Keck, Founding Director, Common Folk Coffee

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Governance
Founders' Agreement
Supplier terms of service
Trade Mark Advice
Australian Consumer Law
General Business and Commercial

Blog

Useful free advice, resources, and opinions.

Thinking about selling or purchasing a business? Differences between a sale of shares vs a sale of assets

21 Jan '19

Blog, General Commercial, Intellectual Property, Mergers and Acquisitions

When considering a transaction for the sale and purchase of a business (whether you are the seller or the buyer), it is essential to think about how to structure the sale to meet your needs. In this article we briefly discuss the differences between a sale of shares vs a sale of assets, while outlining