Blair Beven

Expertise

Blair has over 18 years’ experience in the area of Intellectual Property (IP) in Australia and New Zealand. He is widely regarded as a preeminent expert in trade mark and patent law. Blair was named as a highly recommended lawyer for Intellectual Property in The Legal 500 Asia Pacific, 2019.

In 2013, he founded the Australian office of New Zealand’s largest IP firm and managed a team of over 20 IP professionals. Blair regularly advises a diverse client base including food and beverage, skincare and cosmetics, entertainment, media, IT, fashion, finance, and celebrity endorsements.

His clients include start-up ventures, individuals, celebrities, and small to medium companies. More recently, Blair has worked with the commonwealth government to devise a global branding strategy and filed trade mark applications in over 120 countries.

Blair currently manages over 2000 trade marks in Australia and overseas and represents the IP interests of over 250 clients.

Blair’s expertise includes:

• trade mark creation, availability and registrability
• global trade mark protection strategies
• enforcing IP rights (trade marks, designs, copyright, patents)
• licensing of trade marks
• copyright matters
• patent enforcement strategies
• breach of confidence matters (including data theft and breach of confidential information)
• IP litigation, including appearing in the Supreme Court of NSW, the Federal Court of Australia and before IP Australia.

Experience

Blair has significant experience in trade marks, copyright, design, and patent strategies. While his specialisation is mainly trade marks, he also has experience in all forms of IP litigation including trade mark infringement, patent litigation and breach of confidence matters.

Blair’s experience includes:

• protecting the trade mark of a well-known Australian skincare brand in over 120 countries involving over 400 individual trade mark applications
• protecting the trade mark of an Australian IT company in 45 countries in multiple classes of goods and services
• protecting the name of a high profile fashion retailer from inception
• protecting the celebrity name of a well-known Australian supermodel
• negotiating publishing rights for an Australian celebrity chef
• negotiating the joint venture and protection of IP rights with a large US television network
• opposing and defending multiple trade mark applications at IP Australia
• appearing before the Federal Court in 2018 a patent infringement suit involving two innovation patents (involving Bluetooth technology)
• appearing before the Supreme Court of NSW in a breach of confidence matter involving the sale of an accountancy business
• appearing before the Federal Court in a breach of confidence matter involving the employee theft of over 300,000 customer names
• protecting the new First Nations trade mark in Australia and globally for the Australian Federal Government
• appearing before the Federal Court in a patent suit involving the appeal from a patent office decision
• currently appearing in the Federal Circuit Court against the International Olympic Committee on an appeal of a trade mark hearing decision
• currently appearing before the Supreme Court of NSW on a complex confidentiality breach and trust issues
• currently appearing before the Federal Circuit Court on an appeal of a trade mark hearing decision
• currently appearing before the Federal Court on three major trade mark infringement matters against three respondents.

Membership

Law Society of New South Wales
New Zealand Law Society
Intellectual Property Society of Australia and New Zealand (IPSANZ)
International Trade Mark Association (INTA)
Committee member for INTA Enforcement and Oppositions