SUMMARY
One of Potter Clarkson’s key strengths is our ability to create cross-disciplinary teams comprising of IP attorneys from multiple technology areas and IP solicitors. This approach enables our clients to tackle all the intellectual property related challenges they will face at the various stages of their lives more easily and more effectively and with the support of the best qualified people for their field.
We utilised this approach recently whilst working with a start-up client producing algae for feed and food.
Although the client is relatively small, their newly developed strain of algae has the potential to become a global success as their new strain takes away some of the undesired characteristics from the algae from which the strain was developed by mutation.
Working together our patent attorneys helped define and file a suitably broad patent application. Meanwhile the trade mark and legal and regulatory specialists in the team protected the new name of the strain, secured their Freedom to Operate and gave the client much needed advice on the novel food approval they needed from the EU authorities to market the final strain as a food product.
More importantly, at the same time we were able to protect the client against a claim of patent ownership from the university our client began the mutation process at which helped our client avoid expensive and potentially damaging litigation.
VALUE DELIVERED
If the client hadn’t been able to access this winning combination of patent, legal, regulatory and branding advice, they would not have been able to create the fully fledged IP strategy they needed to take their product from the lab to the shops.
