Economy’s trade mark signs

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A surge in trade mark filings indicates that Cornish companies are continuing to perform well following the challenges of the last few years, according to a leading intellectual property lawyer.

Ben Travers: "Economy on  the rise"
Ben Travers: “Economy on the rise”

Stephens Scown LLP has filed 55% of all trademarks filed by professionals in Devon and Cornwall this year. To date the firm’s intellectual property and IT team has filed 90 UK/EU trade mark applications on behalf of its clients, covering everything from motorsports equipment to food and drink products.

Ben Travers, partner and head of intellectual property and IT at Stephens Scown, explained: “One way to judge economic growth out of a recession is to look at the number of trade marks filed.

“A trade mark is the badge of origin for a product or service and it follows that an increase means that more businesses are either developing new products or services, or feeling more confident about their existing offering that they want to protect it.

“Our trade mark filings for the first half of 2014 are double what we filed for the whole of last year, which in turn had been a threefold increase on 2013. This pattern of growth shows that the south west economy is on the rise.”