Colin Hulme

The Managing IP Awards saw Burness Paull named winners of the Scottish Patent Contentious Firm of the Year and also Scottish Copyright Firm of the Year awards at the event which took place in the Royal Lancaster Hotel in London last week.

Brodies was recognised for the seventh consecutive year, picking up the awards for Scotland’s Trade Mark Contentious Firm of the Year and IP Transactions and Advisory Firm of the Year.

Brodies’ IP team received the awards in recognition of excellence in innovation and specialist intellectual property work over the past 12 months.

Burness Paull’s IP practice is led by Colin Hulme, the only Scottish IP litigator ranked as band 1 in Chambers UK and as a “leading individual” in Legal 500.

He said: “The patents award is reflective of the ongoing work we are doing with AstraZeneca in the Court of Session and acting for both operators and major service companies on patent disputes in Scotland and internationally in the oil and gas sector.

“The breadth of our practice is underlined by the copyright award in recognition of our work for significant rights-holder clients such as the Harris Tweed Authority, Sky, PPL, PRS for Music and the enforcement of their rights across Scotland ensures we are the heaviest user of the Scottish IP Court by some margin.”

Robert Buchan

Robert Buchan, partner and head of Brodies’ contentious IP team, said: “IP continues to be critical in safeguarding the future of many businesses, encouraging innovation and improving the bottom line. This year we have worked on international patent and trade mark disputes and high value IP transactions, as well as using the local Scottish courts to successfully protect valuable IP rights.

“Receiving these awards from Managing IP for the seventh consecutive year is a great honour, and is testament to the hard work of the team at Brodies, not to mention our clients, who we thank for continuing to trust us with challenging and interesting mandates.”