After substantial growth in the last year, intellectual property (IP) firm James & Wells has moved to a new CBD office in Grey Street.
“Growing from a team of two to a team of eight in a reasonably short timeframe, meant our old office was no longer fit for purpose,” says Partner Ian Finch. “While we enjoyed being part of the Smart Business Centre, it will be great having custom-built premises with plenty of space to host staff, clients and colleagues.”
As New Zealand’s leading privately-owned intellectual property law practice, and the NZ Law Awards IP Specialist Law Firm of the year, James & Wells is proud to have been supporting innovation in the Bay for over 20 years.
“Over this time there has been a substantial increase in activity, both in business from the Bay and from overseas clients. Having a larger team based in Tauranga will allow us to serve more of our local clients from the local office, rather than from Hamilton or Auckland,” says Ian.
Nigel Tutt from Priority One says, “It’s great to see continued business growth in the western Bay of Plenty, reflected in a greater need for intellectual property expertise. We know first-hand the value that James & Wells can add to businesses, their additional capability will certainly strengthen the community.”
With a multi-disciplined team of specialists on the ground in Tauranga, including trade mark attorneys, patent attorneys and IP lawyers, James & Wells works closely its clients to identify and maximise the value of their intellectual property. Whatever you’re developing – be it new plant variety rights, machinery, software-as-a-service, or an artisan food or beverage brand – their team can help you understand and plan how best to protect and commercialise it. Many of James & Wells’ clients in the Bay are successful exporters and the team works with them to ensure that their IP rights are secured and maintained in overseas markets in a timely manner. A well-established network of overseas counterparts makes the process, simple, straightforward and transparent. This helps James & Wells ensure it provides exporters with the best, most up-do-date advice and services for protecting their IP internationally.
“In recent years we’ve also built up a specialist Asia division to assist clients doing business in, or looking for investment from, Asia,” says Ian. “We now have four professionals in our team, all fluent in Mandarin, as well as speakers of Japanese and Korean. If your sights are set on exporting into or securing investment from Asia, we can help you.”
And if you get into any kind of IP strife, James & Wells has New Zealand’s largest dedicated IP litigation practice on hand to assist. With internationally recognised expertise and a proven track-record, the team helps clients of all sizes resolve IP and fair trading disputes.
James & Wells is committed to championing innovation and its contribution to economic growth in the region. If you want to chat about your IP, our team would love to hear from you.
