BrandFit®

Our trade mark portfolio health check - BrandFit® will make sure your portfolio is fit for purpose and that your budget is working as smartly as it can.

Trade mark portfolios should be fluid: constantly evolving to reflect and support the changing needs of a business. However, that’s not always the case:
 

Why does it matter?

When there is a disconnect between business plan and trade mark portfolio, it can:

  • Put the company at risk

  • Lead to missed opportunities to build value in the business

  • Result in excessive and illogical expenditure on a market or brand worth very little, while leaving more valuable parts of the business under-invested in and under-protected

 All of which may decrease value, waste money and give rivals a competitive advantage. 
 

How can we help?

To make sure your trade mark portfolio is fit for purpose and that your budget is working as smartly as it can, we have developed BrandFit®​. This portfolio “health check” delves in to your business plan and assesses your existing trade mark portfolio against it, getting to the bottom of what you do and don’t need, saving you money, identifying any gaps and areas of risk, and making proactive, tailored recommendations to shore up your brand protection.
 
Whether you think your portfolio has stagnated (especially if you’re changing your attorneys or thinking about it), whether you want to protect and de-risk your next stage of growth, or whether you’re heading towards due diligence for investment or exit, BrandFit® will give you a clear road-map to help build a strategic, robust portfolio that genuinely supports and adds value to your business.
 

Who is BrandFit® for?

All too often, we see portfolios where trade marks have been filed, registered and left, sometimes for years, with no further consideration or regular review. As a result, key geographic markets are left exposed with no protection; new brands/products/services are added to the range but not protected or cleared for use; and logos are updated but not re-registered, leaving old registrations open to non-use cancellation and problems with enforcement.

In other cases we see portfolios where a few marks have been filed, just to get the business off the ground and secure a minimum level of protection, but with no real strategy behind it. Often, understandably, the work has been done inhouse, without professional advice, and it’s only when a new round of investment comes in that the funds are there to look at the bigger picture and develop a more cogent and effective brand protection strategy.

In fact, the anticipation of investment or exit is often the (very sensible) trigger to look at a portfolio more closely. The process of due diligence can raise all kinds of questions about the state of a portfolio, and any gaps or obvious risks may well be used by investors or potential purchasers to lower the value of a company. If that analysis can be completed before due diligence, the company stands a much better chance of realising (or even increasing) its potential value.

Sometimes a company doesn’t even know what’s in its portfolio and whether or not it’s fit for purpose. This is a frequent occurrence following a merger or acquisition and it can be a serial headache for companies that are especially acquisitive.

Rowena Tolley

Rowena Tolley

Partner

Iain Stewart

Iain Stewart

Partner

Carrollanne Lindley

Carrollanne Lindley

Partner

Ryan Pixton

Ryan Pixton

Partner

Claudia Festen

Claudia Festen

Partner

European IP

Read our guide: Managing a trade mark portfolio

To help businesses understand and capitalise on the hidden value of their brand, we have partnered with LexisNexis – to produce a guide that contains a wealth of strategic and practical advice.

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