Swindell & Pearson Ltd

Christine is an IP director and member of the firm’s tech and engineering practice groups. Christine has amassed significant experience of drafting and prosecuting patent applications in high tech and physics areas of technology. In particular she has worked on computer implemented inventions, telecommunications, nanotechnology, audio processing and health devices. During her time at Swindell & Pearson, Christine has established trusted relationships with some of the firm’s multinational clients by providing consistently high-quality work within agreed budgets and time frames. Christine drafts patent applications which are suitable for use all over the world. She has a reputation for drafting clear and comprehensive patent applications and enjoys working closely with inventors and clients to make sure that the patent applications are technically correct and focussed on the client’s commercial interests. Christine prosecutes a significant number of patent applications before the European Patent Office and is very experienced in the nuances of European law. She is skilled in optimising patent applications for prosecution in Europe and in formulating strategies for obtaining allowance of these patent applications before the European Patent Office. Before joining Swindell and Pearson Christine graduated from the University of Cambridge where she studied experimental and theoretical physics and learned to adapt her northern accent so that southerners could understand her. When she is not at work, Christine spends most of her time caring for her young family and occasionally swimming with her local swimming club Etwall Eagles.

Kieron Taylor is an IP director and a member of the firm’s trade mark and litigation practice groups. Kieron is a chartered UK trade mark attorney, a member of the UK Chartered Institute of Trade Mark Attorneys and an authorised litigator in the High Court. Kieron’s trade mark practice includes work in many different fields of technology and commerce. Kieron has particular expertise in the fields of fashion, charities, building, construction, food and beverages, retail and industrial products. Kieron manages global IP portfolios for a number of major brands. He advises on elements of trade marks and allied rights including protection, exploitation and also enforcement on a multijurisdictional level. His clients range from individual rights holders and SMEs to multinational trade mark owners. Kieron seeks to fully understand his client’s business and seeks to focus on the heart of any problem to provide advice that is as commercially relevant as possible. He is fiercely loyal to his clients and brings attention to detail and a very thorough knowledge of the law, which he combines with his strong business focus to provide excellent service to a growing number of clients from the UK and from across the world. Kieron is very active in litigation and always seeks to provides commercially astute advice. He has personally acted for clients in a wide variety of tribunals including at the High Court, Court of Appeal and the Intellectual Property Enterprise Court. He is also very active for clients appearing regularly in ex-parte and inter-partes hearings at the UKIPO, being one of the most frequently instructed attorneys to act in hearings at the UKIPO year on year. Kieron travels frequently to the US and regularly attends conferences held by the International Trademark Association (INTA). Kieron joined the firm in 2007 and has 20 years of experience as an IP attorney. He has an undergraduate degree from the University of Birmingham and a master’s degree in law from Nottingham Trent University.

Martin Terry is an IP director and member of the firm’s tech practice group. A European and chartered patent attorney, he has over 15 years’ experience of patent drafting, prosecution and opposition work in Europe and the UK. Martin has extensive experience coordinating patent filing programmes and patent prosecution in many countries around the world including: the US, China, Japan, Korea, India and Canada. He also routinely provides advice on freedom to operate and enforcement matters. He has extensive experience handling oral proceedings at the European Patent Office and has successfully defended his clients’ patents at both opposition and appeal proceedings. Martin enjoys handling work in a wide range of technical fields. He offers expertise across a large number of technology sectors, including: mobile telecommunications, satellite navigation systems, semiconductor technologies, computer implemented inventions and medical devices. A significant proportion of his work is in assisting in-house IP departments for large multinational corporations, who appreciate his high service levels and ability to make things easier for them. They also value his ability to successfully prosecute some of their more problematic cases. Martin is frequently called upon to take over cases whose prosecution has been tricky. Martin also greatly enjoys working closely with his SME clients. He takes great pride in establishing and nurturing long term relationships and getting a deep understanding of his clients’ businesses and specific requirements as well as earning their trust so as to become their dependable and trusted IP adviser. He routinely develops strategies for his clients to build their IP portfolios. In addition to seeking patent protection, as a European design attorney, he is also able to assist his clients in seeking design protection for their products and innovations. Martin also helps his UK based clients take advantage of HMRC’s “Patent Box” - thereby significantly reducing their Corporation Tax. Before entering the patent professions, Martin graduated with a first class master’s degree (with honours) in physics with astrophysics from the University of Bristol. Prior to joining Swindell & Pearson in 2010, he initially trained and professionally qualified with a leading firm of patent & trade mark attorneys in London. Martin has formerly chaired the firm’s patent law committee which monitors changes in UK, European and foreign patent law. Outside of work - prior to having children - Martin enjoyed travelling around the world. These days he gets much pleasure in dragging his family out on walks and cycle rides in and around Derbyshire and the Peak District. He also enjoys cricket and regularly plays for his local team, Delta Rail CC. He is an avid drinker of tea.

As an IP director and head of the firm’s trade mark practice group, Nick is a chartered UK trade mark attorney, a fellow of the UK Chartered Institute of Patent Attorneys and a European patent attorney. He is also a member of various IP professional organisations including INTA, PTMG, ECTA and Marques. With 30 years of assisting his clients in complex and intricate intellectual property matters, Nick has a wealth of experience that his clients benefit from on a daily basis. His clients continually test the existing boundaries of intellectual property law, particularly in the area of trade marks and allied rights. This ensures that Nick and his team stay right on top of their game, not only in the ever-developing intellectual property law itself but in how these laws can help, protect and integrate with constantly evolving business practices and e-commerce environments. Nick’s work is on a truly international scale, involving the preparation, acquisition and enforcement of his clients’ IP rights around the globe. Having filed many hundreds of applications, fought countless oppositions, revocations, cancellations and legal actions, and negotiated hundreds of settlement and licence contracts for his clients over the years, he brings an unsurpassed wealth of experience and pragmatism that his clients have come to expect and respect. Nick has always held the belief that it is invaluable to develop a deep understanding of a client’s business so that advice can be as tailored, relevant and valuable as possible. This sound philosophy has meant that Nick has worked with the majority of his clients for very many years. Outside work, Nick enjoys a game of badminton and indulging his passion for motor cars.

Paul Higgin is an experienced UK and European patent attorney. Paul likes to maintain long term relationships with his clients and aims to provide good value, consistently. Although Paul is now a senior member of the firm, he still enjoys helping new clients achieve their ambitions through patents and welcomes new client enquiries. Paul is highly recommended in the 2016 to 2020 editions of ‘The Legal 500’. He has been in the patent profession for over 25 years and has developed significant patent experience in a wide range of technologies including telecommunications, electronics and microelectronics, semiconductors, software and computer systems, nanotechnology and medical devices. Paul has drafted over 600 patent applications and is adept at “distilling the essence of an invention” in complex technology areas. For example, Paul has drafted patents essential for GSM, Bluetooth, WiFi and LTE standards and has recently been helping clients with 5G, machine learning, internet of things, digital health, spatial audio and virtual reality. Paul also has first-hand experience of asserting (and defending against) patents in licensing and litigation, and can advise on optimal strategies for drafting, prosecuting and enforcing standard essential and high value patents. Originally qualifying at a London firm of patent attorneys, Paul then joined Nokia where he was promoted to senior IPR counsel and a member of the strategic patent licensing team. Paul has actively participated in cross-licensing negotiations worth many hundreds of millions of Euros (Qualcomm, Alcatel, NEC, Bosch, Schlumberger, Samsung, LGE). Paul then joined Swindell & Pearson as a founding member of the tech practice group, which he leads. Paul has personally recruited and trained 10 other patent professionals currently in the tech practice group. One of Paul’s strengths is managing a team to provide consistent high quality, at a reasonable price, across every member of the team. The tech practice group has been commended for its activities in automotive, electronics, mechanics and medical engineering in the Legal 500. The team has also been commended for its “strength in the telecoms and semiconductor sectors”. Paul has advised and trained clients on protecting innovations near the borderline of what is and is not considered to be patentable, for example, computer software, user interfaces and business methods. Paul has also been an innovator of a number of strategies that help achieve fast grant and improve international prosecution for US originating cases, that have been widely adopted in the patent profession. Paul, originally from Belfast, read natural sciences at the University of Cambridge majoring in experimental and theoretical physics. He then took a post-graduate degree in semiconductor science and electronic engineering at Imperial College, London where he researched the manufacture of quantum structures. Paul enjoys living in rural Derbyshire. He often travels, sometimes to scuba dive. He still enjoys learning and recently successfully completed the Stanford University course on machine learning.

Scott is an IP director in the firm’s tech and engineering practice groups. He drafts, files and prosecutes patent applications in the UK and Europe. Scott is well versed at managing large patent families, having worked on hundreds of US, Chinese, Japanese, Korean and Australian patent applications during his career. In addition, he has filed and managed patent applications in some less common jurisdictions, including for example Vietnam, Venezuela, Saudi Arabia and the UAE. He has considerable experience of crafting offensive and defensive patent strategies for a wide range of clients, from multinationals to SMEs and start-up businesses. High quality patents that Scott has obtained, after mapping their claims onto competitor products, have been used in multimillion pound licensing programs. Scott has obtained patents that have been used by a start-up client to obtain investment of over £1 million. He has also helped a number of UK companies develop patent strategies to obtain significant tax relief on their products through use of the Patent Box, reducing their Corporation Tax burden by around half to approximately 10%. Scott particularly enjoys oral advocacy and regularly appears at the European Patent Office in both examination and opposition proceedings. Scott has successfully defended patents that he has drafted and prosecuted at the European Patent Office and revoked those owned by competitors of clients. His practice encompasses a number of fields in the tech and engineering sectors. On the tech side, he has drafted, prosecuted and advised on patent applications in a wide variety of fields including telecommunications, computer architecture, image processing, computer security, artificial intelligence and blockchain. In engineering, Scott has worked with inventions relating, for example, to aerospace technology, armoured vehicles, composite materials, rocketry, lighting and door and window hardware. Scott travels frequently to the US and regularly attends conferences held by the American Intellectual Property Law Association (AIPLA) and the Intellectual Property Owners (IPO) Association. He sits on the Corporate IP Management Committee of the IPO Association. Before entering the profession, Scott graduated with a first class degree in physics from Imperial College London. He spent his third year studying and researching nuclear physics and optics at La Universidad de Cantabria in Spain. Scott joined Swindell & Pearson in 2003 and became an IP director in 2011. Outside work, Scott loves travelling to new countries and meeting new people. He also enjoys playing sport and can often be found at Molineux, home to Wolverhampton Wanderers FC, at the weekend.

Tim is an associate with specialisms in both engineering and tech. His main role is to secure patent and registered design protection which meets the business needs of his clients, both in the UK and worldwide. Tim’s clients range from small start-ups to internationally-renowned universities and world-famous companies. One of Tim’s favourite parts of his role is developing and maintaining strong relationships with clients: he regularly visits clients’ premises in order to discuss cases and discuss important developments in their business (including upcoming products, competitors’ products and market trends). By developing such a deep understanding of clients’ intellectual property and their business contexts, Tim is able to make valuable suggestions to clients about how to leverage their intellectual property. Tim is recommended in the Legal 500 with the testimonial ‘Tim Gilbert is extremely customer focused, open to feedback and responsive to our requests. Our positive experience of S&P has so much to do with the way he has personally managed our account. We are most grateful for his attention to detail and his prompt actions, which have kept us on track over the past few years.’ Tim’s legal skills extend to complex situations such as infringement, ownership of intellectual property, software patenting, and applying the legal systems of other countries. He can also prepare patent applications that are optimised for the ‘Patent Box’ corporation tax scheme. Tim handles technology across most of the physical sciences, including telecoms, computing and general engineering. Before joining the profession, Tim graduated with a PhD in Civil Engineering from the University of Birmingham. His thesis is entitled ‘Aerodynamic Effects of High Speed Trains in Confined Spaces’. Testing included catapulting 1:25 scale model trains along a track at speeds of up to 200mph past aerodynamic sensors. Outside of work, Tim enjoys spending time with family. He enjoys playing guitar, going to concerts, and playing tabletop games.