Dehns

Dehns is one of Europe’s leading IP law firms dedicated to providing high quality and creative solutions to their clients’ intellectual property needs.

Founded in London in 1920, Dehns now has eight offices across the UK, Germany and Norway, and a team of more than 300 people all focused on delivering a comprehensive range of intellectual property services to a wide range of clients across the globe. Dehns has more than 150 patent attorneys, trade mark attorneys, solicitors, IP Consultants and trainees, all working with multinationals, SMEs, start-ups, spin-outs, academic and research institutions, and individuals to identify, protect and maximise the value of their IP. In the last 10 years, Dehns has filed more patent applications than any other UK firm of patent and trade mark attorneys, and has handled more Oppositions than any other UK firm of patent and trade mark attorneys.

Dehns has specialists working across all sectors and industries including: aerospace, automotive, medical devices, manufacturing machinery, energy, elevators, consumer products, telecommunications, biotechnology, healthcare, pharma and chemical industries. Dehns’ teams of technical experts can support on any technology in any sector or industry - Dehns has almost 50 PhDs within the firm and more than 120 Masters’ degrees, so they have experts covering all technologies from fluid mechanics and chip architecture, to nuclear fusion and neural networks, and from polymer chemistry and high-tech materials, to genomics and diagnostic assays.

For many years, Dehns has been recognised for its commitment to deliver consistently excellent service quality and high standards, highlighted by the regular top tier rankings and impressive references and testimonials received by leading legal and IP directories such as Legal 500, Chambers and Managing Intellectual Property.

The Unified Patent Court (UPC)

Dehns is at the forefront of the UPC and has already been involved in a number of high-profile cases, including both revocation and infringement actions. They were amongst the first of the UK IP law firms to have attended UPC hearings at first instance and before the court of appeal.

Dehns has 77 European Patent Attorneys able to represent parties in all proceedings before the UPC, and in whatever Division of the UPC the action is commenced.

Being at the forefront of UPC activity in the UK, it is unsurprising that a Dehns Partner, Rob Jackson, chairs CIPA’s UPC Committee which supports and promotes the work of Chartered Patent Attorneys before this court. Rob has appeared before the first instance court and the Court of Appeal, including the Oral Hearing of the first case to be filed at the Paris Central Division.

 

Type of work undertaken:

Patents

Dehns has an outstanding Patents team, comprising of over 100 patent professionals working in a comprehensive range of engineering fields, including: physical sciences, photonics, nanotechnology, medical devices, mass spectrometry, electronics, AI and software. Dehns also has more than 30 patent professionals specialising in the biotechnology, life science, pharmaceutical, chemistry and biochemistry sectors.

Dehns files more patent applications on behalf of its clients than any other UK IP law firm, with a total of 7,619 filed in the last 12 months.

In recent years, Dehns has consistently been the highest ranked IP law firm in the UK in terms of the number of EPO Oppositions; it is involved in over 3% of the total number each year.

Trade Marks

Dehns has a substantial Trade Mark practice consisting of 20 UK and European Trade Mark Attorneys. Their attorneys are able to advise and assist clients in connection with all aspects of UK and overseas trade mark protection, including the selection/searching, registration, management and maintenance, policing and enforcement of trade marks. Their Trade Mark practice is led by Elaine Deyes, who has been a Partner at the firm since 2007.

Trade Secrets

Dehns offers a comprehensive trade secrets service, led by IP Management Consultant, Haakon Thue Lie, who has extensive expertise in the management, use, and integration of trade secrets within an IP portfolio. Haakon has a PhD in industrial economics and technology management, specialising in open innovation and trade secrets, and is also a qualified European Patent and Trade Mark Attorney.

One of the practice’s strengths is their ability to use trade secrets alongside other forms of IP. For instance, during preliminary patentability reviews, Dehns advises clients not only on the patentability of their inventions but also on potential trade secrecy issues

Designs

Dehns not only work with clients to protect the technology behind their products, but they also assist with protecting the products aesthetical appearance and work to advise clients on how they can protect their Designs.

Copyright

Dehns work with clients to control the use of their work and to be identified as the creator of their work, through their copyright services.

Consulting

Dehns offers a unique Intellectual Property Consultancy service that provides tailored strategic advice to help their clients make critical business decisions. The Consulting team is led by two highly experienced IP Management Consultants. The Consulting offer includes helping create IP roadmaps and developing strategies for any type of organisation at any stage of its lifecycle. For many new clients, Dehns helps to identify the IP generated within the business, obtain the relevant protection (e.g. patent, trade mark, trade secret, design, copyright, etc..), and then helps protect and maximise the value of those IP rights.

Dispute Resolution

Dehns’ Dispute Resolution team provides a fully integrated and strategic approach to IP dispute resolution in Europe. They bring together experienced solicitors and patent/trade mark attorneys (both UK and German) in a single legal team.

They are able to conduct litigation at all levels of the UK courts (Intellectual Property Enterprise Court, High Court, Patents Court, Court of Appeal and Supreme Court), the Unified Patent Court (UPC), the Court of Justice of the European Union (including the General Court) the UK Intellectual Property Office, together with the German Federal Court (for nullity proceedings), the European Patent Office as well as the EU Intellectual Property Office (dealing with trade mark and design oppositions cancellation actions and invalidity actions).

Dehns consistently handles more EPO Oppositions/Appeals than any other UK firm of patent and trade mark attorneys.

Dehns’ Litigation team is headed by Paul Harris, a globally renowned solicitor with more than 35 years’ experience of all types of IP disputes, and includes seasoned, qualified Patent Attorney Litigators.

Diversity

Dehns is recognised as an inclusive employer, having achieved ‘Committed’ status from Inclusive Employers.

They have one of the highest proportions (37%) of female partners of any of the leading UK top tier IP law firm, with Senior Partner (Elizabeth Jones), Head of Trade Marks (Elaine Deyes), Head of Chemical (Louise Golding) and Head of Biotechnology (Hanna Dzieglewska) all being female.

Offices:

London, Munich, Oslo, Brighton, Oxford, Manchester, Bristol and Birmingham.