Beijing – Global law firm K&L Gates has launched a Chinese trademark agency – the K&L Gates IP Agency – which now allows the firm to file and prosecute trademark applications directly with the China National Intellectual Property Administration (CNIPA). 
 
While K&L Gates’ global trademark team previously used the services of local firms to file and prosecute trademarks in China, the team now can file applications and handle oppositions, revocations, and renewals entirely on its own. Launching the agency is in direct response to the client need seen by the team at K&L Gates, and allows K&L Gates to offer clients a streamlined trademark solution across four continents. 

This streamlined solution offers clients competitive pricing – the only fully financially integrated international firm able to do so – with the firm’s global IP team seamlessly covering Australia, New Zealand, the United States, Europe, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Singapore, and the United Kingdom.

Chris Round, one of K&L Gates’ IP procurement and portfolio management practice group coordinators, shared: “Registration of trademarks in China is critical to the success of our clients’ global operations. The creation of the K&L Gates IP Agency allows us to streamline our engagements with clients to remove a level of administrative process so that we can offer a fully integrated trademark solution in China with the cost benefits of this efficiency.”

Significant strategic benefits come from having local teams on four continents when managing an organization’s global trademark portfolio, allowing K&L Gates lawyers to continue to use their international platform to register and enforce marks worldwide. 

A team of dedicated intellectual property lawyers led by Beijing counsel Edward Yao supports the integrated K&L Gates IP Agency.

K&L Gates intellectual property lawyers manage global and regional trademark portfolios for leading multinational organizations and advise clients on their multijurisdictional enforcement, anti-counterfeiting, and design protection matters. 

K&L Gates’ intellectual property practice has more than 200 lawyers and professionals – including approximately 100 registered patent lawyers, agents, and technology specialists with technical or advanced science degrees, nearly 20 with doctorates – who devote their practices to helping clients establish, enforce, and leverage their intellectual property rights worldwide. 

This highly regarded global team has been recognized among the world’s leading trademark practices and professionals in Legal 500, Managing IP magazine’s ‘IP Stars’ 2020 rankings, and World Trademark Review’s annual WTR 1000 rankings, a comprehensive survey of leading trademark practitioners in more than 80 jurisdictions.