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Author: Ben Cross

How Our Partnership with Intanify is Revolutionising Intellectual Property Audits

Posted on by Ben Cross

At Panoramix IP, we continually seek innovative ways to deliver enhanced value to our clients. With this in mind, we’re thrilled to announce our exciting new partnership with Intanify, a pioneering tech firm specialising in AI-driven intellectual property solutions. This collaboration significantly transforms how we perform IP audits, elevating the efficiency, accuracy, and effectiveness of our services.

The Adoption of AI Brings a New Era in Intellectual Property Management

Intanify is at the forefront of leveraging artificial intelligence to streamline routine yet crucial IP management tasks. Our recent conversation with Dylan Dryden, Intanify’s Co-founder and CEO, highlighted the powerful capabilities of Intanify’s platform. Dylan explained how their technology radically reduces the manual work traditionally involved in IP audits, enabling IP experts like our legal team to focus our efforts on strategic, high-value insights. With Intanify, we are reducing complexity and time with intelligent automation.
From experience, we know that typically, conducting an IP audit is a time-intensive task. It requires our legal professionals to meticulously review numerous documents, extract relevant information, and compile comprehensive reports. Traditionally, an audit could take seven plus hours, depending on the volume of documents to review, often leaving limited time for in-depth strategic advice, whilst keeping costs affordable for clients.

With Intanify’s advanced AI-driven platform, much of this manual workload is automated. By digitising standard audit questions and using AI to analyse extensive documentation rapidly, Intanify can accurately pinpoint crucial insights in a fraction of the usual time. During our call, Dylan shared an example where the Intanify platform efficiently reviewed 150 documents, a process that would typically require significant human hours spent reading and examining, highlighting the incredible efficiency and precision of their system.

 

With Intanify, Panoramix IP Delivers Superior Insights and Strategic Value


Thanks to Intanify’s automation, our solicitors and attorneys are now able to invest their valuable time where it matters most for our clients, interpreting insights, identifying opportunities, and addressing risks strategically for better IP protection.

Rather than receiving previously more dense, standardised reports, our clients also benefit from highly focused advice that directly impacts their IP strategies and business outcomes.

Dylan shared a compelling case where Intanify’s tech powered another IP firm , showcasing how their combined approach resulted in clients proactively addressing critical IP matters immediately. This case resulted not just in a successful IP audit report, but also in significant strategic actions, including the client choosing to file new patents, rectify trade mark issues, and the implement essential trade secret policies, all off the back of the detailed IP audit report and strategic insight the firm was able to offer.

 

Making Intellectual Property a Dynamic Asset

In our own experience, traditionally, IP audits often produce static reports that can quickly become outdated. Intanify changes this by transforming the traditional IP audit into an ongoing, interactive management tool. For example, instead of a one-off 25-page PDF document, clients receive access to a live asset register that continually evolves as their business grows and changes and documents or policies are added.

Intanify’s suite keeps clients actively engaged with their IP assets, making it easier to update, manage, and protect these assets effectively. Much like how businesses actively manage physical assets, Intanify enables organisations of all sizes to apply similar rigour to their intellectual property, ensuring their IP strategies remain current, robust, and aligned with their business objectives.

 

What Does This Mean for our Clients at Panoramix IP?



Our partnership with Intanify directly enhances the value we deliver to our clients. Through advanced AI automation, our clients can expect:

  • Faster, more efficient IP audits: Reducing audit completion time significantly, allowing quicker decision-making.
  • Strategically actionable insights: Detailed analysis provided swiftly, ensuring clients receive maximum strategic benefit.
  • Continual asset management: Live asset registers that evolve, ensuring IP protection strategies remain robust and relevant.
  • Cost efficiency: Reduced manual effort translates to cost savings, allowing us to offer competitive pricing without compromising quality.

A recent example discussed with Dylan involved a recent client of ours, who, for confidentiality reasons , we cannot name, who noted substantial improvements using Intanify compared to traditional methods they had experienced previously. Initially sceptical, they quickly recognised the tangible benefits, highlighting enhanced strategic insights and improved value-for-money, ultimately leading to additional proactive IP protection measures being implemented, and them choosing to go ahead with us at Panoramix IP.
This partnership reflects our dedication to continuous improvement and innovation, and is one of many adoptions of AI technology that we have onboarded this year to improve the service to our clients. By integrating Intanify’s technology, we’re reinforcing our commitment to delivering cutting-edge IP services and strategic advice that truly benefits our clients.
Dylan emphasised that Panoramix IP’s integration with Intanify not only enhances our service delivery but also places us distinctly ahead in an increasingly competitive market. This partnership empowers us to provide unparalleled value through deeper, more meaningful client engagements, significantly raising the bar for IP management practices.

For more information, get in touch with us

To explore how this innovative approach can enhance your IP strategy, we invite you to contact us. Let’s discuss how our partnership with Intanify can transform your IP management, safeguarding and elevating your organisations IP potential.
For more information on Intanify and their groundbreaking approach, visit their official website.

10 Hidden Costs of Not Protecting Your Intellectual Property

Posted on by Ben Cross

We’re often told how every successful business is built on great ideas, but what we don’t often hear is how intellectual property protections played a vital role in their success. Whether you’re launching innovative products, designing distinctive brands, or creating unique solutions, your intellectual property (IP) is one of your most valuable assets. Yet, surprisingly, many businesses underestimate the importance of protecting their IP, leaving themselves exposed to risks that can have severe, long-lasting consequences. Through our own research, we found that here in the UK, a staggering 95% of businesses aren’t protecting their intellectual property.

Here are ten hidden costs your business could face if you don’t protect your intellectual property effectively:

1. Losing Your Competitive Edge

In the competitive world of business, uniqueness is your strongest asset. Without proper IP protection, your ideas, products, or designs can be easily replicated by competitors. Imagine investing time, effort, and money into your next big idea, only for another company to freely capitalise on them by bringing your ideas to market before you. Protecting your IP helps maintain a clear competitive advantage, ensuring your business remains a step ahead. With the correct protections in place, we can give you peace of mind that you have a time-limited monopoly on your ideas to maintain and maximise your competitive edge.

2. Lost Revenue

When your IP isn’t secured, others can exploit your innovations and trademarks, siphoning off market share and revenue that rightfully belongs to you. The financial impact can be severe, significantly reducing profitability. Effective IP protection ensures that your business alone benefits financially from your innovations, safeguarding your hard-earned income.

3. Erosion of Your Brand

Your brand is more than just a name or logo; it’s the core identity of your business, embodying the trust and reputation you’ve built with your audience or customers. When others misuse your brand without your permission, customers become confused, trust diminishes, and your reputation suffers. Proper IP management ensures your brand identity remains distinct, credible, and resilient in the face of infringement.

4. Increased Legal Risks

Operating without IP protection dramatically heightens your vulnerability to legal challenges. If competitors register or claim ownership of similar ideas or trade marks, your business could face costly lawsuits and time-consuming disputes. The financial and operational disruptions caused by legal battles are significant. IP protection helps proactively mitigate these risks, keeping costly litigation at bay. If you’re currently facing any intellectual property disputes, Panoramix IP can help.

5. Decreased Business Valuation

Whether you’re seeking investment, partnerships, or even planning an eventual sale, your business’s valuation matters. Investors and buyers highly value companies with secured IP as it demonstrates proven innovation and a clear market advantage. Any unprotected IP can considerably reduce your business’s perceived worth, limiting potential growth opportunities. Protecting your intellectual property demonstrates ownership of unique innovations, significantly enhancing your company’s valuation.

6. Loss of Market Exclusivity

Exclusivity in the market is a powerful tool for business success, especially in niche or specialised areas. Without secured IP rights, competitors can easily enter your market space, offering similar products or services and diluting your unique value proposition. Robust IP protection ensures you retain exclusive control, enabling your business to maximise its unique market position and profitability.

7. Damaged Reputation

Reputation is critical for a business. When your IP is unprotected, the risk of substandard imitations increases significantly. If consumers encounter poor-quality or unethical products linked mistakenly to your brand, your reputation suffers damage that may be challenging, and often expensive, to repair. Protecting your IP enables you to maintain consistent quality standards and preserve your brand’s integrity, reinforcing customer loyalty and trust. Having the necessary protections in place early on, as part of a strategic business growth plan, helps to mitigate damages to your organisation’s reputation.

8. Stifled Innovation

A culture of innovation is fundamental to long-term business success. It’s how organisations stay ahead of the competition, being able to freely develop and grow new ideas and creations, often for monetary gain. Without the appropriate IP protection, you and your team may be less inclined to innovate if you fear your ideas will be easily appropriated by others. Secured IP rights give your employees the confidence to innovate freely, knowing their contributions will be recognised and protected. This security fosters creativity, enhances morale, and drives continuous business improvement.

9. Missed Licensing and Franchising Opportunities

IP protection opens avenues to additional income streams through licensing and franchising agreements. Without proper protection, you lose these valuable opportunities. Licensing your IP can offer substantial revenue without additional operational burdens, providing a passive income stream. Franchising allows for business growth with reduced capital investment. Protecting your IP ensures these opportunities remain accessible, helping your business scale effectively.

10. Loss of International Markets

Globalisation has made it easier than ever to access international markets, but it also increases the importance of IP protection abroad. Without securing IP rights internationally, you risk losing market footholds to local competitors who can legally copy and exploit your ideas and branding. Securing your IP internationally ensures your business can confidently expand and compete effectively in international markets, safeguarding your growth prospects.

Securing Your Future

The hidden costs of neglecting IP protection go far beyond immediate financial losses. They affect your competitive positioning, long-term growth, and even your company’s legacy. It’s essential to understand and manage these risks proactively. At Panoramix IP, we understand the importance of getting the right protections in place as early as possible. We specialise in helping businesses of all sizes protect their valuable ideas and innovations. Our experienced team offers strategic IP guidance, tailored specifically to your business’s needs, helping you transform your ideas into secure, strategic assets.

Protecting your IP isn’t merely a defensive measure; it’s a strategic investment in your business’s future. Ensure you’re not exposed to unnecessary risks; start securing your intellectual property with Panoramix IP today.

To discuss your business’s specific IP protection needs, contact our expert team.

What is a Trade Mark Class?

Posted on by Ben Cross

In the UK and many other countries, trade marks are registered in different “Classes”, which are determined by the type of goods and services that your business will be offering under the trade mark. There is an international system of classification called the “Nice Classification system” which sets out the types of goods or services that are contained within each Class. When you apply to register your trade mark, you will need to select the Classes to include in your application and also list the goods or services that you want to include within each Class. Your trade mark will only be registered for those goods and services, and you should have a genuine intention to use your trade mark for those goods and services.

For example, Class 25 covers “clothing, footwear and headgear” and Class 35 includes many different services under headings such as “advertising, marketing and promotion”, “retail and online retail” and “business advice and consultancy”.

As well as choosing the correct Classes, the items within each Class must be drafted using the correct approved terminology; otherwise, the Examiner will issue an “objection” when examining your application and ask you to amend the description to incorporate the acceptable terminology. An example is the difference between Class 9, which includes “downloadable electronic publications” and Class 41, which includes “the provision of non-downloadable electronic publications”. In general, details must be provided about the nature of the goods and services, rather than just including overly broad, general terms. The US Registry is particularly inflexible in this regard and requires that you include only specifically worded terms, with the threat of penalty fees for non-compliance.

There is a separate Registry fee for each Class that you include in your application. In the UK, this is £50 for every additional Class over and above the initial application fee of £170.

Getting the description of your goods and services right when you apply to register your trade mark is extremely important as it will affect how you can use and enforce your registered trade mark in the future. Your description should be wide enough to cover future anticipated growth and diversification of your brand, but not so wide as to attract unnecessary opposition from the owners of earlier similar trade marks.

Here at Panoramix IP, we can assist you in choosing the most appropriate Classes for your trade mark registration application and with drafting your list of goods and services in a way that offers you the best protection and complies with the relevant best practice and regulations. We will work with you to fully understand the nature of your business and its particular field of expertise to tailor your application to meet your exact business needs. Contact us today to get started.

5 Benefits of Registering a Trade Mark for your Brand

Posted on by Ben Cross

There are many advantages to securing registration of your business’s trade marks, whether it be your product name, business logo or other distinctive branding that you use, such as a catchy slogan or tagline. Below we list the 5 benefits of registering a trade mark for your brand or business.

This post highlights some of the most important advantages that registration brings:

  1. A registered trade mark will give you an exclusive monopoly over the use of that mark for the goods and services included in your registration, in the country of registration. This means that you can prevent third parties from using an identical or similar trade mark in respect of a similar or competing business, without your consent, unless they started to trade under that mark before you.

 

  1. A registered trade mark is easier to enforce than unregistered trade mark rights, allowing you to bring an infringement action in the courts if someone else starts to use a confusingly similar mark for the same or similar goods and services. If your trade mark is not registered, you would instead have to rely on a “passing off” claim which is harder to establish and prove, requiring evidence of ownership of the goodwill in your trade mark and of damage to your business and/or goodwill as a result of the third party’s unauthorised use.

 

  1. Registration allows you to use the registered ® symbol next to your mark, as long as this is only used in the country of registration and for the goods and services for which your mark is registered. Use of this symbol puts third parties on notice that your trade mark is registered and that they should not use it or a confusingly similar mark. If your mark is not registered, it is a criminal offence to use the ® symbol, and you would instead need to use the unregistered “TM” symbol next to your unregistered trade mark. The ® symbol also shows that your trade mark is valid and that you are its owner, and that its validity can only be challenged through cancellation of the registration on specific grounds, which must be proven at the tribunal or court.

 

  1. A registered trade mark is classified as personal property, which can be commercially exploited as an asset in itself. This means that it can be licensed, assigned and/or used as security for a charge. Your business can use its registered trade marks to gain additional revenue from commercial licensing and other contractual arrangements with third parties.

 

  1. Potential investors or purchasers usually require that any trade marks and other Intellectual Property assets in use by your business are registered before they will enter into a deal with your business or company. This is so that they can be certain that your business actually owns all of the IP that it purports to and that these rights are valid and enforceable. The investors or purchasers will want to have the strongest legal protection possible for your assets, that they can rely on if it later transpires that a third party is in breach of your business’s trade marks or brings a claim of infringement or passing off against your business.

Panoramix IP can assist you with registration of your trade marks and other Intellectual Property assets. We can also conduct a thorough review of your business and trade mark portfolio and work with you in formulating a brand protection strategy that fits your particular business needs. Speak with one of our expert team today and get started on protecting your brand assets in the UK and beyond.

 

Why Should You Register a Trade Mark for Your Business?

Posted on by Ben Cross

Why Registering a Trade Mark Matters for Your Business

Building a recognisable brand takes dedication, consistency and time. But the benefits of having a name that consumers instantly recognise can be transformative for your business. A strong brand builds loyalty, enhances your reputation, and helps you stand out against the competition. At Panoramix IP, we believe protecting that investment in your brand should be a strategic priority.

One of the most effective ways to safeguard your business name and branding is by registering a trade mark. It is a straightforward and relatively cost-effective process, yet it can provide powerful protection.

 

So, What is a Trade Mark?

A trade mark is a form of intellectual property that protects identifiers such as brand names, logos and slogans.

It serves as a badge of origin, helping customers distinguish your products or services from others. Famous examples include names like Starbucks, Pepsi and Nike.

Unlike copyright, which arises automatically in the UK, a trade mark must be registered with the UK Intellectual Property Office (UKIPO). Your application will need to specify the appropriate categories, known as ‘classes’, which describe your business’s goods or services. With 45 classes to choose from, it is essential to get this part right. For example, a clothing company would register under class 25, and potentially class 14 for accessories.

Our expert trade mark solicitors can advise you on classifications and handle the application process.

Once your trade mark is registered, you gain exclusive rights to use it in connection with your specified goods or services. This means others cannot use something identical or confusingly similar, even if they came up with it independently or were using it before your registration. Your registration initially lasts for ten years and can be renewed indefinitely.

 

Word Mark or Logo: Which Should You Register?

Deciding whether to register your brand name, your logo, or both depends on how you use your branding in practice.

A word mark generally provides the broadest protection, allowing you to use the name in any format or style. However, there are situations where registering your logo is advisable:

  • If your logo has a distinctive design you wish to protect.
  • If your word mark may be considered too descriptive or lacking in uniqueness on its own.
  • If your brand presentation consistently uses both the logo and the name together.

You can register a logo on its own or as a combination mark with your brand name. While registering both requires two separate applications, you may also consider a “series” application, which allows for up to six closely related marks in a single filing. This can be useful for registering logos in different colour formats.

 

The Benefits of Trade Marking Your Business Name

Registering your business name as a trade mark is not legally required, but it brings numerous advantages:

  • Legal Protection: You obtain exclusive rights to your name within your sector. It allows you to prevent others from using it and gives you leverage to stop infringement through formal legal routes.
  • Prevent Market Confusion: Owning your name means no other business can mislead customers into thinking they are buying your goods or services.
  • Brand Recognition: With a protected and unique name, customers can easily identify your brand and associate it with your values and quality.
  • Added Business Value: Trade marks are assets. They can increase your company’s worth and often form a large part of your business’s overall value.
  • Easier Enforcement: If a competitor tries to register a similar name or uses yours without permission, you have strong legal grounds to object or take action.
  • Commercial Opportunities: Trade marks can be sold, licensed or used as part of franchise agreements. They may also be used as security in financial arrangements.
  • International Expansion: By securing your name in the UK, you lay the foundation for registering it abroad, helping prevent others from using your brand in new markets.

 

When Might Trade Mark Registration Not Be Suitable?

While registering a trade mark is almost always advisable, there are a few scenarios where it may not be appropriate:

  • Cost at Early Stages: Start-ups often have limited budgets. However, the long-term cost of failing to protect your brand can be much higher. Starting small and expanding your portfolio later is a practical approach.
  • No Immediate Use: If you do not intend to use your trade mark within five years, it may be revoked for non-use.
  • Increased Scrutiny: Public registration might attract the attention of competitors who believe your brand is similar to theirs. However, registration gives you a legal advantage if your mark is valid.
  • Not Suitable for Registration: Your name may not meet registration criteria. For example, overly descriptive names like ‘Sweet Cakes’ for baked goods are unlikely to succeed. A mark must be distinctive and capable of distinguishing your offering from others.

 

Work with an IP Specialist

Our team at Panoramix IP helps clients navigate these questions every day. We advise businesses before they settle on a brand name, ensuring their chosen branding is protectable and does not infringe existing rights. If changes are needed to increase the chances of registration, we can suggest those too.

By consulting with our trade mark solicitors early, you reduce the risk of developing branding that cannot be protected or, worse, exposes your business to potential infringement claims.

 

Final Thoughts

Trade marks offer a simple and powerful way to protect your brand. The benefits span legal protection, enforcement options and long-term commercial value. Whether you are just starting or expanding your operations, registering your trade mark is a wise investment.

At Panoramix IP, our dual-qualified solicitors and attorneys are ready to help you take the next step towards protecting your business. Speak to our team today to explore how a registered trade mark can secure and enhance your brand’s future.

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