Ionic Legal

Chandni Jobanputra

Chandni is an associate in our Intellectual Property team. She has significant experience in assisting clients to enforce their intellectual property rights in the UK through civil and criminal proceedings. This has included liaising with clients and government bodies to identify if certain goods are counterfeit and producing statements to support those proceedings. Over the years, she has built up an extensive network of contacts in Trading Standards and Customs through attendance at conferences and training days and has regularly assisted clients in devising anti-counterfeiting strategies to prevent the importation, sale and distribution of counterfeit goods in the UK. In addition, Chandni has advised clients on securing appropriate trade mark protection for their brands and designs both in the UK and overseas and assisted clients with trade mark opposition proceedings. Chandni’s recent career highlight involved assisting a client to settle an unregistered design right claim against them, which involved negotiating no payment of damages (the other side had initially asked for £120,000) and a discontinuance of proceedings.

Paul Cox

Paul heads up the Intellectual Property Practice Group across all the Foot Anstey offices and is also responsible for leading the International Group. He has practised in the IP field for over 25 years and the main legal directories have recognised him for many years as a leading individual within his field.  Paul has also been admitted into the IP Hall of Fame for the South East.  During this time, Paul has worked at two large international law firms based in London (Baker & McKenzie and SJ Berwin) and undertook a secondment to one of his previous firm’s Australian offices. Foot Anstey is a large independent national UK law firm with offices in London, Manchester, Bristol, Southampton, Exeter and Plymouth.   Its IP team is one of the largest outside London with 5 partners and 15 other solicitors, trade mark attorneys and paralegals across its offices. Paul regularly attends conferences and events all around the world including INTA, IBA, ECTA and ACG. Paul is listed in the WTR 1000 as a Bronze Individual for Enforcement and Litigation: "Paul can always be counted upon to give sound and practice advice, and his solutions are always cost effective". Paul has a wide range of experience in dealing with IP matters and has acted for many household names in several sectors including Retail, Professional Services, Leisure, Food and Drink, Automotive, Technology and Telecoms, and regularly deals with many international and national disputes through our associated offices around the world. He has extensive experience of assisting international and national businesses on trade mark and design prosecution matters, IP disputes, and drafting and negotiating various commercial IP agreements.  In particular, he has represented many cases before the UK IPO, EU IPO,  the Intellectual Enterprise Court and the High Court. For example, Paul has acted on the following matters: Managing a large world trade mark portfolio (1500 marks) for a business licensing its rights to several other companies and enforcing those rights against third parties by bringing civil and administrative proceedings around the world. Bringing interim injunction, summary judgment and default judgment proceedings to prevent the sale of unlawful parallel imports into the UK. Acting for a large drinks manufacturer in bringing enforcement action in the UK against others seeking to take advantage of its brand in the UK. Conducting worldwide clearance searches for a financial services client and advising on the adoption of a new brand. This involved taking proactive steps to minimise any risks. Bringing and conducting court proceedings for and on behalf of many companies relating to trade marks, patents, designs and confidential information. Recently, Paul has been defending a client in the Intellectual Property Enterprise Court in a registered design and unregistered design right case relating to the packaging of food and is currently representing two large international clients (financial services and drinks manufacturer clients) in bringing proceedings against third parties infringing its trade mark rights.