Case Study 1
Background
Client: Education provider
Problem solved: Copyright infringement
Our client is an education provider in a very niched space who regularly trained contractors to present their programs. They had recurring concerns about people taking and using their intellectual property.
Solution
We designed a plain English ‘integrity agreement’ covering confidentiality, competition, intellectual property and online promotion or disparagement. Using clear and simple language, the contract explained the impact of non-compliance on our client, as well as setting out the obligations of the people being trained to present our client’s materials.
The client has let us know that their contractors agreeing to the new integrity agreement are much more engaged in the vision and mission of their business and have stopped ‘adopting’ our client’s materials as their own.
Read more about how to protect your Intellectual Property
Find out moreCase Study 2
Background
Client: Online retailer
Problem solved: Threat of legal action for breach of trademark
Our client had been operating a successful online retail business for around four years when he suddenly received a letter demanding he immediately stop trading and hand over his website. The claim came from an American company that had come into Australia and registered a trademark that our client had been using for years. The client came to us and asked if we could represent him in court.
We recommend clients avoid going to court wherever possible, so we immediately started looking for other options. We estimated that court proceedings would have cost our client around $150,000, taken around three years and we couldn’t guarantee we would be able to successfully defend our client’s case.
Solution
On review of our client’s business, it because clear that his customer database was the revenue generator, not the website, and his customers were more interested in the product rather than the brand. We worked with his UK suppliers to adopt new branding and have that trademarked in Australia, as well as putting in place a licence for our client to use that mark and develop a new website. We assisted our client to develop and implement a 90 day rebrand and engagement strategy to move his clients across to the new brand and change his website. We then negotiated with the trademark owner to purchase our client’s domain name.
Dispute resolved successfully within 90 days without any loss of revenue in our client’s business.
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