Mark Nichols
Mark is an experienced intellectual property (IP) solicitor, with a particular focus on IP protection and disputes across brands, copyright and patents. As head of the firm’s AI group, he specialises in the crossover between IP and artificial intelligence.
Mark is an IP solicitor with a wide-ranging practice, focusing largely on brand and IP protection, and disputes. He has extensive experience in complex patent, trade mark and copyright litigation across multiple sectors, from pharmaceuticals to the creative industries, including in significant cross-border matters.
As head of AI at Potter Clarkson, his patent and copyright disputes work sits alongside his advisory work on the use, development, protection and enforcement of rights in software and AI. Alongside this advisory work, he has experience in complex disputes involving software, including the crossover between patents, trade secrets and copyright.
Mark also has significant brand protection, strategy and enforcement expertise, and has advised on brand protection strategy for many well-known brands. He has acted before the UK Intellectual Property Office (UKIPO), the European Union Intellectual Property Office (EUIPO) and the Courts, and frequently deals with major platforms such as Amazon, eBay and Facebook.
- Successfully represented Cloud Cycle Limited in relation to its freedom to operate against Verifi LLC
- Representing Dr Stephen Thaler in an appeal to the High Court from the Comptroller of Patents’ decision refusing his patent application for inventions arising out of his AI, DABUS
- Advises easyGroup Limited on protection across its family of brands
- Advises multiple high-profile clients in relation to their internal use of AI
- PGDip, Intellectual Property, University of Oxford
- LPC, University of Law
- GDL, Law, University of Law
- BA, Philosophy, University of York
- Member of the International Association for the Protection of Intellectual Property (AIPPI)
- Member of The Society for Junior Intellectual Property Practitioners (IPSoc)
- AIPPI UK: Group prize for study question contribution (2019)
- IAM Patent 1000
- MIP EMEA Awards 2024: UK Rising Star of the Year
- MIP IP STARS: Rising Star
About Mark
Experience
Areas of expertise
Qualifications
Testimonials
Awards
How We Live Our Values: Ambition
At its heart, intellectual property protects the value in creations - whether brands, technology, or creativity. But it only delivers real value when it’s tied to a clear commercial purpose. That’s why, when advising on protection or commercialisation, I always begin with the business objectives. Ambition means thinking beyond the legal framework to help shape strategies that support growth, investment, and long-term success.
In My Own Words
I have always held significant interests in emerging technology, and in the structure of argument, language and complex ideas. Ultimately, this led me to study philosophy. I am now fortunate to combine my enjoyment of complex ideas and argument with my interest in technology in my legal career.
Highlights have included a dispute about whether the shape of a London taxi should be protectable as a trade mark, and how the fast-changing question of the scope of protection against equivalents in patent law should be defined.
More recently, AI has brought philosophy, technology and law together still further. The still-unresolved question of whether training an AI on copyright works constitutes infringement quickly devolves into the technical question of what an AI does when it learns, and the philosophical question of whether and why that should be treated differently to human learning.
None of this would matter, however, were it not for the commercial importance of them. Despite my philosophy background, I am in law because it offers the opportunity to apply complexity to commercial realities. Ultimately, the most rewarding aspect of the job comes in assisting a client in meeting its commercial objectives, with the complexity sitting in the background.
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