Laurie Heizler

Job Title: Senior Consultant Solicitor

A highly experienced intellectual property (IP) and commercial lawyer, Laurie has dealt with a great diversity of transactional and contentious matters in his career in industry and private practice.

Laurie qualified in 1985 as a barrister and retains that qualification since becoming a solicitor in 1994. He has previously been a partner in Legal 500 law firms and has worked as internal legal counsel in multinational pharmaceutical and food companies. His clients include creative personalities, start-up ventures, SMEs, and international businesses.

Laurie offers the following specialist support to clients in sectors including consumer goods brands, media and entertainment, manufacturing, technology, medical services, publishing and further and higher education.

Intellectual Property:

• Company Names Tribunal matters
• Copyright: advice on copyright exploitation and protection
• Designs: advice on unregistered design rights and procurement of registered designs
• Disputes: copyright, trade mark, designs, and patent disputes, whether resolved informally, through court action, or by proceedings in the UK Intellectual Property Office (UKIPO) such as oppositions and applications for declarations of invalidity
• Domain name disputes using the WIPO Uniform Dispute Resolution Procedure
• Due diligence on IP rights relevant to corporate transactions
• Freedom to operate and clearance searches
• Licences and assignments of all IP rights
• Moral rights
• Patents and know-how transactions
• Personality and image rights
• Trade marks: filing new applications in the UKIPO; advice on trade mark portfolio management
• Trade secrets and confidential information

Commercial matters

• Agency agreements
• Agreements for sale of goods, services and software
• Confidentiality and non-disclosure agreements
• Consumer-related terms, including website trading terms
• Consultancy agreements
• Distribution agreements
• E-business, including consumer-focused trading terms and distance selling
• Franchising agreements
• Joint venture agreements
• Manufacturing agreements
• Outsourcing and procurement agreements
• Regulatory and compliance advice, inclusive of competition law and gambling
• Research & development agreements
• Terms and conditions of business

Information technology and media:

• Data protection (GDPR), including general compliance and contentious data subject access requests
• Defamation (libel) and reputation management issues in social media and non-digital publications
• Framework and master services agreements for IT provision
• Image release agreements
• Online privacy issues
• Software/SAAS licences
• Sponsorship and product endorsement agreements and image release licences
• Website content and support

Laurie is available for meetings in London and Surrey.

Approach:

Whether he is dealing with disputes or transactional matters, Laurie takes a commercial approach to obtaining optimum results for his clients. In every matter, he reflects clients’ goals and expected outcomes in pragmatic and creative ways. He has been described in various editions of the Legal 500 as a “commercial and IP law expert,” “very knowledgeable and thorough,” and “another name to note."

Notable recent matters:

• Advice and drafting in relation to an entirely new software suite of documents for management of call-outs and emergency treatments at accident locations, with possible transport of patients to hospital, on behalf of a helicopter air ambulance service.
• Advising a cosmetics company on IP rights relating to the acquisition of product formulae from overseas.
• Appealed successfully against UKIPO decision rejecting client’s opposition to a trade mark application.
• Assisted client in relation to the image rights of a well-known Hollywood actor for the purposes of a possible film production.
• Contract drafting and actions to obtain a full suite of IP rights on behalf of an international training company.
• Drafted all documents relating to the commissioning, arrangement and licensing of a religious music concert being recorded and broadcast.
• Provided IP clearance advice (designs and patents) in multiple jurisdictions relating to novelty toy products.
• Successfully defended a trademark invalidity application and a Company Names Tribunal action with overlapping issues of fact brought against an environmental services company.
• Represented specific parties in published IP cases, including Kallo Foods Limited v Whole Earth Sweetener Company and Merisant UK, Whyte and Mackay Limited v Origin Wine, and Woodhouse v Architectural Lighting.

Outside of work, Laurie enjoys reading history, travelling (almost anywhere!), and good food and wine.

Email: [email protected]

Practices: Business Law, Corporate & Commercial, Intellectual property