Biography

Richard is recognised as one of the UK’s leading Intellectual Property specialists with over 30 years’ experience in all aspects of contentious and non-contentious IP law, with particular emphasis on dispute resolution, relating to patents, trade marks, copyright, passing off and confidential information.

Richard has led the way in pioneering a better way of delivering IP advice based on his conviction that earning trust, building long term client relationships (appreciating that ‘you are only as good as your last game’) and delivering the best advice, can always be delivered at a fair price. Whilst he is a senior partner of the firm, and is widely known in the industry, he remains heavily engaged with clients, supervising much of the firm’s most complex work.

His clients include Jet2.com, JD Sports, Regus, Roche, and Tesco. His range of work to date has been extensive and often high profile. Examples include:

  • Successfully acting for Asda in the first supermarket look-alike case to go to trial, the United Biscuits v Asda proceedings, which became known as the Penguin v Puffin case
  • Acting successfully for IBM in the first Community Trade Mark infringement and revocation case in the UK, in IBM v Web-Sphere.
  • Obtaining for a multinational company, and simultaneously, 37 interim injunctions for patent infringement (a UK record) against 19 companies at the BCPC International Crop Science Exhibition in Glasgow, the world’s largest agrochemicals fair.

Richard is a solicitor and is ranked by Chambers/Legal 500 as extremely bright, “positive and terrific”, “extremely knowledgeable and calm under pressure, intelligent, knowledgeable and a lateral thinker, incredibly well organised and efficient, innovative, proactive, practical, a sagacious star partner who doesn’t sit on the fence, a leading individual in the intellectual property field”, and “nationally recognised as one of the field’s most eminent practitioners”, seen as having “a down to earth manner” and there being considered to be, for IP disputes, “no finer practitioner in Yorkshire”.

As a result of Richard’s acclaimed expertise, he has been interviewed for television and Radio by (amongst others) BBC News 24, Radio Leeds and Panorama, is regularly invited to speak at a number of national and international specialist conferences and is the author of a number of published articles.