At Mills & Reeve LLP, 'the IP team has an excellent 'can do' attitude and its responsiveness and communications are superb'. Led by Mark Pearce, who works from both the Leeds and Cambridge offices, the practice is active in both contentious and advisory matters for clients in the technology, life sciences, automotive, food and agriculture, and education sectors. Head of life sciences James Fry is a key adviser to numerous global companies, among them GSK. He assisted F-star Therapeutics with an international strategic discovery collaboration and licence agreement. Principal associates Richard Plaistowe and Nicola Hanglin 'show humour, restraint, and patience' in complex matters.

Legal 500 Editorial commentary

Testimonials

Collated independently by Legal 500 research team.

‘A very customer-friendly and highly competent practice, with a plethora of expertise in various fields. They have numerous locations in the UK and are therefore very accessible.'
‘Individuals at this practice have a magnificent ability to obtain a sound grasp of the underlying issue and they always provide extremely insightful guidance on how to proceed with the matters at hand.’
‘The IP team has an excellent 'can do' attitude. Their responsiveness and communications are superb. They always strive to find a pragmatic solution for our clients.’
‘Richard Plaistowe and Nicola Hanglin are excellent communicators, who demonstrate a flexibility in thinking that provides our clients with commercially pragmatic options. They have also shown humour, restraint, and patience - for that I am extremely grateful. I trust this team at Mills & Reeve to do their utmost to achieve the best possible results for my clients. I never feel that the work we refer is taken for granted, no matter how small the file.'
‘I didn't know anything about IP or trade marks applications and they have made the process easy to understand and helped us navigate some difficult situations. ’

Key clients

First Light Lamps Limited
The British Council, the University of Cambridge and IELTS Australia Pty Limited (the “IELTS Partners”) and IELTS UK Services Limited
Domino Printing Sciences Plc
Orbit Service Partners, Inc
F-star Therapeutics
GSK
MD Orthopaedics
International Paralympic Committee
Peachaus Limited
Casella Wines

Work highlights

Acting on behalf of the Agricultural and Processed Food Products Export Development Authority in an EU trade mark matter appealed to the Court of Justice of the European Union and obtaining a favourable opinion from the Advocate-General of the CJEU.
Acting for First Light Lamps Limited in a patent infringement and validity action which concerned a manufacturing method for sealing electrodes into the ends of high-performance quartz glass arc lamps.
Managing the international “IELTS” trade mark portfolio of The British Council, the University of Cambridge and IELTS Australia Pty Limited and successfully acting for them in trade mark oppositions against applications for IELTS MEDICAL and domain name complaints against domain names in the name of IELTS Medical Ltd.