Marks & Clerk opened its first office in Birmingham in 1887 to serve British innovators. Today, we have offices in eight of the UK’s most innovative cities, serving national and international clients. We work in close collaboration with other Marks & Clerk offices and partner IP firms across the world.
Securing patent rights and making them work commercially is complicated. We help innovators protect, defend, and maximise the value of their inventions.
We apply our technical understanding, legal knowledge and broad experience relating to the protection and enforcement of IP rights to assist you in commercialising your IP assets.
Our extensive experience ranges from the strategic and technical excellence needed for complex patent litigation to the tactical insight and commercial acumen involved in branding, designs and copyright disputes.
We’re experts in securing trade mark rights, protecting and enforcing brands and solving legal branding challenges.
The firm was founded in the UK by renowned engineer, George Croydon Marks. A colleague of Thomas Edison, he also became a director of record companies, Columbia and EMI. After serving as an MP, he later entered the House of Lords.
Within a year of the firm’s foundation, Dugald Clerk had joined the partnership. Clerk was the inventor of the two-stroke gas engine, a Fellow of the Royal Society and a frequent expert witness in patent litigation. He was later made a Knight of the Realm in recognition of his services to science and technology.
It’s the powerful combination of technical and legal excellence that continues to characterise the firm today. With patent attorneys, trade mark attorneys and commercial lawyers and IP litigators we can work with you at every stage of the IP process, from securing an initial trade mark or patent, to taking a product into new global markets and taking infringers to the courts. We work across many sectors. And have people with deep technical understanding in areas such as medical technologies, life sciences, software development, AI and other digital technologies.
We have offices throughout the UK, as well as strong connections in some of the country’s most dynamic cities, universities and research institutions.
Our UK offices act as a base for the many attorneys serving clients across the globe, from the Americas to Asia.
We often receive top rankings in the major legal directories including:
Marks & Clerk works with some of the world’s most innovative and well-known companies, helping them secure IP rights in the UK, Europe and globally.
