CONSUMER GOODS

The consumer goods sector is one of Australia’s most exciting and dynamic areas. Dominated by the clothing, fashion, cosmetics, toiletries and jewellery industries, consumers are responding to the purity and quality of Australian products.

Astute producers of consumer goods know that product-based innovation can be easily identified and copied. To obtain a sustainable competitive advantage, it is imperative that these companies consider innovation outside of products alone.  Successfully innovating beyond the product means developing robust ideas that cut across multiple types of innovation ranging from partnerships, to enhanced consumer experiences and alternate delivery channels.

Technology continues to play a key role in the consumer goods industry. Companies face major strategic questions — including how to build a successful business through online retail channels, how to build brands and categories in a socially networked world and how to exploit technology-driven opportunities to understand consumers more deeply and connect with them more often.

Our consumer goods team advise clients on IT procurement contracts and has significant IP expertise in licensing, software development, software maintenance, and source code escrow arrangements. We have also assisted our clients with issues such as cybersecurity and phishing, ownership of metadata, online defamation and misleading and deceptive conduct, and misuse of trade marks online.

Services to the consumer goods industry include:

• Clearance searches for your products, technology and processes
• Preparation, filing and prosecution of patent and design applications
• Patent/design watching services (monitoring and surveillance of IP landscapes)
• Patent/design oppositions (for IP owners or applicants)
• Patent/design litigation (for IP owners or respondents)
• Patent validity investigations
• Freedom to operate advice for innovative products and packaging

• Due diligence
• IP audits
• Portfolio management
• Grant application
• Structuring business considerations to enhance your IP value and return
• IP valuation in respect of brands or technologies
• IP analytics to identify opportunities for innovation and manage infringement risk

• Trade mark protection (filing and registration) for brands, including novel trade mark categories such as shape, colour and scent
• Trade mark enforcement
• Clearance searches for trade marks (locally and international markets)
• Regulatory approvals including packaging, labelling, safety, recalls
• Country of origin representations
• Advertising and marketing clearances
• Anti-counterfeiting campaigns including border protection and customs seizures for “fake” or infringing products
• Copyright advice and disputes

• Manufacturing, supply, distribution and licensing agreements
• Consumer Guarantees advice
• Australian Consumer Law advice and disputes
• Australian Consumer and Competition Commission advice and disputes
• Contractual disputes