Abello IP Firm

The firm: Abello IP Firm was created in 2003 by Mr Bertrand Loyer and Mr Michel Abello, lawyers of the Paris Bar and European patent attorneys (EPA) and former French IP attorneys.

The firm specialises in intellectual property. The core activity of the firm is the protection, exploitation and defence of innovation. The firm is an IP boutique offering full services both in IP (prosecution, contracts, IP assets financial evaluation and litigation) and working closely with specialised partners on related corporate law issues (company incorporation, commercial contracts and labour law). Abello IP Firm is a multidisciplinary law firm: it is one of the few legal firms in France which combines the scientific and legal skills of lawyers and engineers.

Abello IP Firm has a consultant approach reinforced by its prosecution and litigation practice, especially when drafting patents and reaching settlements, either in court or through mediation.

Abello IP Firm is a paperless office – the management of the files is fully digital and environmentally friendly. Clients are provided with a secured web access to its databases. Communication with the patent and trade mark offices (FPTO, EPO, EUIPO, WIPO) and the French and EU courts of justice are made through electronic transmissions.

The firm’s main fields of technology are electronics and telecoms, energy, mechanics, life science, medical devices and applied arts.

Abello IP Firm represents SMEs and large international companies, with a strong technical background. Loyer & Abello has tripled its size during the last five years. At present the firm employs 20 staff comprising 14 lawyers and European attorneys and administrative staff.

The firm’s main area of practice is patent prosecution and litigation in complex patent cases, in the telecom, automotive and life science fields.

In 2016, Abello IP Firm published, with Lexisnexis, a reference guide regarding the favoured means of proof in intellectual property and unfair competition.

Areas of practice
Litigation: management of pre-litigation cases, including warning letters, settlements and provisional measures; strategic and legal counselling (especially seizure of infringing goods and bailiff’s reports, for which the firm has a long-standing and reputed experience); representation and defence before civil courts and UPC (nullity, infringement, unfair competition proceedings, contract and tort, damages, commercial litigation); alternative proceedings for settlement of conflicts (mediation, negotiation, arbitration); litigation regarding inventions made by employees (inventorship, supplementary salary, classification between service invention/dependent invention, building collective agreements).

Trade marks and design patents: trade mark and design searches and freedom to operate legal opinions; watching TM and domain names; trade mark and design filings and prosecution, and renewals with INPI, WIPO and the EUIPO; representation and defence of clients before administrative courts (oppositions).

Contracts and due diligence: research contracts, consortium agreements and any collaboration agreement with research institutes and industrial partners; licence agreement or assignment of rights; incorporation of spin-off from public research; sales, distribution and commercial agents contracts, drafting and negotiating general sale and purchase conditions, commercial property lease, etc); financing innovation; strategy and marketing in innovation – strategic studies and trade agreements (representation, distribution, inter-company trade relations); financial assessment of IP portfolio, audit and due diligence.

Patents: implementation of a policy supporting innovation; prior art searches and freedom to operate legal opinions; watching competitor patent portfolios; patent filings and prosecution, and renewals with INPI, WIPO and EPO representation and defence before administrative courts (oppositions).

International: the firm belongs to a European network of lawyers and patent attorneys named UPCLA (www.upcla.eu) which represents clients before the European Court of Justice and the Unified Patent Court which has its seat in Paris.