Your brand extends beyond simply securing a trademark and includes a client’s public and commercial reputation, image, perception, associations, and positions. A brand is an extremely valuable asset to be built, protected, managed, commercialized, and monetized.
UB Greensfelder’s Intellectual Property Group works with clients on brand development, promotion, monetization, divestment, and protection worldwide across all traditional, electronic, and digital media. Founded on decades of experience from our trademark, copyright, franchise, advertising, media and communications, anti-counterfeiting, and IP trial and enforcement teams, we help clients with selecting, developing, building, protecting, enforcing, and monetizing their brands.
Who We Are
Our team includes attorneys who have worked for decades in the area of brand management and enforcement, including formally serving as in-house counsel at some of the most iconic brands in the marketplace. We provide assistance to clients and their brands as they strategize, standardize, start up, launch, grow, monetize, and sell their products and services, and eventually, as they spin off product lines or license IP or sell the business or business divisions. We are there for and can help during the exciting times of brand formation, development, expansion, co-branding initiatives, acquisition, diversification, and sale, and provide impactful assistance in time of challenge, marketplace, competitor disruptions, and commercial disparagement.
How We Help
Clients come to us for assistance at various stages of their business operations and under dynamic business and market conditions. By way of example:
- Early stages: Clients often seek strategy and advice on appropriate mixes of intellectual property rights that will work to distinguish themselves in the marketplace and to build a valuable IP asset base that will stand between them and their competition. They invest in brand standards, brand strategy and development, counseling and training on proper use, as well as applying for and securing meaningful protection in multiple areas of IP. We have worked with companies that have started out of their garage and have gone on to become one of the highly recognized brands for plush toys. We have taken other companies from securing their first trademark through the sale of their business years and hundreds of trademarks later for hundreds of millions of dollars.
- Established and iconic brands: Clients in this stage of brand management often have in-house counsel and brand management teams managing large worldwide portfolios, budget demands, and adjusting IP management philosophies. We act hand-in-hand with the in-house team as a ready resource for many areas and have also provided economical, budget-friendly services for components they choose to outsource. These brand clients seek our assistance with both strategy and portfolio management assistance, watch services, and enforcement. The clients often have sophisticated licensing arrangements, co-branding, and co-development arrangements for which they seek assistance and often are involved in acquiring and divesting brands and brand assets where we provide transactional and strategic assistance. They seek assistance in risk management for business events, such as geographic expansion, product expansion, brand expansion, and white space capture, where we provide strategy and capture of valuable IP rights as they are created. As technology advances and changes, these clients also seek assistance with their traditional, social, and digital marketing activities and cutting-edge areas of IP law, where we provide a full array of services from concept to consequence.
- Marketplace and Competitor Disruptions: Once there is a problem in the marketplace or with a competitor, the brand is impacted and control of reputation is at risk. Protecting the intangible affiliation, a consumer and an industry have with a brand goes hand in hand with a core aspect of a brand asset – a client’s public and commercial reputation, image, perception, associations, and positions. Enforcement typically causes one to think of IP litigation, an area where we are strong and successful. However, there are many avenues outside the courtroom available for enforcement, and we assist clients in every avenue of brand enforcement.
Specifically, we assist with:
- Brand selection, clearance, and activation
- Advertising and marketing review and clearance
- Social media and digital marketing
- Portfolio budgeting, management, licensing, and enforcement
- Co-branding and co-development
- Brand extensions and monetization
- Licensing, valuation, and sale
- Regulatory compliance and investigations
- Sweepstakes and promotions
- Becoming a franchise and brand management operations
- Supply chain integrity, product manufacturing, and distribution
- Brand standards, counseling, and training
- Brand monitoring
- Anti-counterfeiting enforcement
- Grey market goods protection and enforcement
- Social media misuse, DCMA, and takedown work (false light, confusion, etc.)
- Cyber-squatting/imitation and site redirection
Why Clients Choose UB Greensfelder
There is no one-size-fits-all approach to managing and protecting your brand. We collaborate with our clients to develop best practices for their unique business challenges and opportunities. Our breadth of experience, depth of talent, and focused knowledge enable us to advise some of the world’s most well-known brands on their business-critical intellectual property assets. It also enables us to provide necessary foundational brand components to clients at the formation stage and throughout the lifecycle of their business.
