Our litigation team

Margaret Arnott | Partner

Margaret qualified as a solicitor in 1987 and has 25 years’ experience as a trade mark, patent and design litigator. Her role includes advising in a full range of contentious work, including litigation in court and domain name UDRP proceedings.

Margaret’s background as a commercial solicitor is invaluable in her conduct of contentious intellectual property proceedings and in negotiating settlements. She has played an instrumental role in each of the firm’s cases and is an important part of our litigation success.

Margaret has litigated in numerous IP cases in both the High Court and the Intellectual Property Enterprise Court (IPEC), and has been recommended by the latest edition of The Legal 500. She actively helps her clients achieve commercially beneficial settlements in the majority of those cases, including through various forms of alternative dispute resolution, such as mediation.

According to The Legal 500, the ‘excellent Margaret Arnott’ is ‘a delight to work with’, and she is ‘hardworking, sound, and has common sense and good presentational skills’.

Paul Cozens | Partner

Paul qualified as a patent attorney in 1991 and is a qualified Higher Courts Litigator with considerable litigation experience. Paul was a key part of the team that successfully represented Memco (now Avire) v Strack in patent infringement proceedings in the IPEC. Paul was also involved in the agreement of a confidential settlement between Eckoh plc and Semafone following a dispute over alleged infringement and invalidity of Semafone’s UK Patent (No. GB 2,473,376).

He has been recommended by The Legal 500 and it has been noted that Paul ‘combines excellent technical skills with good business acumen and pragmatism’.

Chris Hamer | Partner

Chris is a patent attorney with 20 years’ experience of contentious IP matters. He has worked on several High Court matters including QinetiQ v GEODynamicsTech 21 v Design Blue LimitedDynaEnergetics v GEODynamics (multi-jurisdictional proceedings including the US and Germany), IGM Group B.V. v Anstar Ltd (multi-jurisdictional proceedings including Germany and China) and OPES Corporation Oy v Republic Technologies (UK) Ltd, where his expertise played a vital role in proceedings. He has also been involved in numerous contentious issues relating to ownership of IP rights, inventorship and licence/JV agreements.

He has been involved in various alternative dispute resolution proceedings, including arbitration and mediation, where he was instrumental in ensuring a successful outcome.

The Legal 500 recommends Chris for being ‘an outstanding lawyer’ thanks to his ‘combination of industry knowledge and attention to detail’. Clients have also praised his ‘excellent service’ and ‘quality’ advice.

Andreas Wietzke | Partner

During his early career, Andreas worked as an in-house counsel at Henkel KGaA, where he was responsible for infringement situations across Europe.

For over 10 years, Andreas’s practice has focused on assisting patent owners and users with patent litigation in Germany. He focuses on finding pragmatic solutions while prioritising the client’s business situation. In several of such cases, successful negotiations meant that cost intensive and time consuming court actions could be avoided. Andreas offers both active and passive litigation tools as part of his strategy advice.

Andreas currently heads up a team dealing with prosecution and litigation in the technical areas of AI and telecommunications.

Robin Richardson | Associate

Robin is a qualified solicitor of England and Wales and a South African qualified trade mark attorney. He has eight years’ experience as a trade mark and domain name litigator. Robin has been involved in contentious cases before the High Court of South Africa, the South African and Namibian Trade Mark Tribunals, the UK Intellectual Property Office and the World Intellectual Property Office.

Robin is an accredited domain name adjudicator with the South African Institute of Intellectual Property Law and has adjudicated a number of disputes before moving to the United Kingdom.

Robin’s Master’s of Law thesis focused on alternative dispute resolution in IP disputes and this combined with his commercial experience assists in advising on litigious matters, as well as seeking amicable and beneficial settlements for his clients.