The procedure for obtaining and maintaining intellectual property rights comprises a number of formalities to be carried out.
Over the years, we have developed a large Formalities department to deal with the different formalities. The department is staffed by highly motivated paralegals that are committed to quickly, efficiently and, most importantly, accurately deal with any administrative matters.
The Formalities department deals with:
- The monitoring of applications for patents, utility models, trademarks and designs by accompanying the application from the day it is filed to the day it is granted or registered. This also involves any intermediate steps such the administrative side of dealing with any official notifications that may be issued by the patent and trademark office
- The validating of a granted European patent in the various European counties chosen by the client. After grant of the patent, certain procedural steps need to be performed to ensure that the European patent is in force in the respective country.
- The translation of patents or patent applications into either English, French or German either for obtaining the grant of a European patent or for validating the European patent in various European countries.
- The translation of patent applications into languages other than English, French or German by relying on a network of valued and trusted local agents in the various countries all over the world.
- The registering of transfers, changes of name, changes of address for any intellectual property right.
- The monitoring of maintenance fees for patents, utility models, trademarks and designs, including informing the client that a fee will be due, monitoring the receipt of his decision to maintain in force or abandon the IP right and ensuring that any due maintenance fees are paid so as to keep the client’s IP right in force.
All of these formalities are carried out all over the world. In many European counties we deal directly with the Patent and/or Trademark offices, without the necessity to involve local agents, due to the fact that the paralegals in our Formalities department are all fluent in English, French or German.
Our Formalities department also acts as an important in-house support to our patent and trademark attorneys by preparing various documents and monitoring internal, client and official deadlines.