Group Profiles

Our Electronics & Engineering Group is headed by Mike Nicholls who graduated from Oxford University with a degree in Physics and has over 20 years experience in the patent profession.

The Group has specialists in electronics, computer software, physics, materials science, chemical engineering and mechanical engineering. We are equipped to handle technology across the full electronics and engineering spectrum. We have extensive experience of securing patent protection around the world, particularly in drafting and prosecuting patent applications before the UK Intellectual Property Office and the European Patent Office, and in representing clients in EPO oppositions and appeals. Our clients range from small start-up ventures to large multinationals, and a significant proportion of our work originates in universities in the UK and around the world. We have much experience of working directly with Intellectual Property departments within companies as well as with attorney firms based outside the UK. Our major clients are world leaders in fields as diverse as consumer and office technology, lithography for semiconductor manufacturing, medical imaging and devices, and automotive technology and components.

We have closely monitored the developing field of patent protection for computer software ever since Martyn Ayers, our leading attorney in the software area, handled the successful appeal in the VICOM case before the Board of Appeal of the EPO (Decision T208/84 - Image Processing). That decision opened the door to software protection in the EPO and for many years established both the boundaries of what was patentable and the style of claim needed. The field has since developed and we have handled patent applications for software-related inventions in many difficult areas such as bio-informatics, quantum computing, medical imaging, design and simulation programs and gaming.

Members of the Group have much experience in assisting clients involved in inter partes matters, both in opposition and appeal proceedings at the EPO, and more generally in litigation, licensing, or freedom to operate matters. We advise companies on patent strategy: questions such as whether or not to seek patent protection, what to patent and which countries to designate. We help with strategies for identifying and evaluating potentially patentable inventions and assessing patent activity of competitors or potential partners.

The Group also handles registered design protection in the UK and abroad (including European Community Design Registration available from the Office for Harmonisation in the Internal Market). We can advise on related topics such as unregistered design right, copyright and the UK Database Right.

If you would like further information please contact Mike Nicholls, Nigel Price or John Leeming.