How We Work
We do not take a side. We clear the ground.
Unlike counsel retained to litigate a single position, BrandConcern examines the entire landscape and finds resolutions that serve the system as well as the parties. We resolve disputes before they reach court — easing the load on an already overburdened legal system.
Three instruments, applied together.
A dispute over overlapping rights is rarely settled by force of argument alone. It is settled when one party understands the procedural terrain better than the other, when a credible opening is finally made, and when both sides can see an arrangement that leaves their portfolios functional.
BrandConcern brings those three elements to every matter: command of procedure, the craft of negotiation, and deep international intellectual property knowledge. None of them requires a courtroom.
Procedure
Every overlap sits inside a web of forums, deadlines and standards — national offices, EUIPO, WIPO, courts at every tier. We know which route is open, which is fast, which is decisive, and which merely burns the parties' resources. Choosing the right procedure is often the difference between resolution and escalation.
Negotiation
Most overlaps persist because no credible, informed opening has ever been made. We make that opening, and we work with both parties at once rather than for one of them.
International IP knowledge
Twenty-three years of practice across virtually every national jurisdiction. We know how the same overlap is treated in Delhi, Frankfurt, New York or Guangzhou — and what each registry, court and counterpart will accept. That depth is what makes an informed opening credible.
The method, step by step
The same sequence applies whether the matter concerns one market or twelve. It is short by design: the longer a dispute is analysed without being moved, the more it costs both sides.
Identify
We establish what is actually held — across trademarks, domains, copyrights, goodwill and trade names — and which of those rights are dormant, unclean or overlapping with another party's position.
Map the procedures
We set out the applicable routes across the full institutional landscape: national courts at every tier, WIPO, EUIPO and national offices, including where their standards and timelines diverge.
Open dialogue
We approach the other side as a party with a position, not an adversary, and make the opening that has never been made: informed, credible, and specific about what a workable arrangement would look like.
Negotiate resolution
Transfer, coexistence, withdrawal or renewal — whichever arrangement releases the deadlock and leaves both portfolios functional and defensible.
What resolution looks like
There is no single shape to a resolved dispute. The arrangement follows the parties' real commercial positions — and it is concluded in writing, with the registries updated, so the overlap does not resurface in another forum or another decade.
Transfer
A right passes to the party who will actually use it — including where the same brand is live in one market and dormant in another.
Coexistence
Both parties keep their rights inside agreed boundaries of goods, channels and territory, recorded so neither can drift.
Withdrawal
A right nobody intends to use is given up or allowed to lapse, clearing the register. Where the harm is not confusion but the cheapening of a well-known brand, the arrangement may be withdrawal or tight boundaries rather than shared use.
Renewal
A registration at risk of lapsing is put back into genuine use, with the evidence in place to support it.
Neutral by method
A traditional firm represents a single client and litigates that position aggressively, without regard to the broader context. BrandConcern examines the entire landscape, works with both sides, maps the whole terrain, and finds resolutions that serve the system as well as the parties. We are not here to win disputes. We are here to clear the ground so commerce can proceed.
This systems-level approach — perceiving the congestion, not merely the dispute — is unique. No other firm combines deep international intellectual property knowledge with a neutral, multi-party methodology that treats the IP ecosystem as a whole rather than as a series of isolated conflicts.
Working with both parties is uncommon, and it is deliberate. A resolution imposed on an unwilling counterparty tends to return as a new proceeding in another forum; an arrangement both sides can live with does not.
We are not retained to win. We measure our result by whether commerce can proceed, not by which side prevailed. That neutrality is what lets us open dialogue where counsel on either side cannot — and it is why the resolutions we broker hold.
Countering exhaustion litigation
Where proceedings are brought to impose cost rather than to vindicate a right, we advise on recognising and neutralising the tactic: procedural strategy, cost-shifting arguments, early dismissal motions, and coordinated multi-forum defence — so that the party with the stronger substantive position is not driven from the field by attrition alone.
The procedure, step by step
From initial enquiry to settlement, registration and aftercare — every stage a dispute passes through on its way to resolution.
Every case we resolve is one the courts never have to carry.
An overburdened legal system is slow, expensive and blunt. Parties who wait for a judgment inherit all three. Parties who resolve early keep control of the outcome, the timetable and the relationship — and leave the courtroom for the disputes that truly need it.
Bring us the overlap before it becomes a case.
Engagements are considered selectively. If your portfolio sits where rights overlap, we will tell you plainly whether we are the right firm — and what resolution could look like.
Contact BrandConcern