Melanie is a Chartered Trade Mark Attorney and joined Birketts in June 2020.

She is a Legal Director in our Intellectual Property Team and heads up the firm’s Branding and Trade Mark Team.

With over twenty years’ experience operating in the intellectual property field, Melanie specialises in trade mark and design protection and enforcement, as well as dispute resolution, brand registration, IP strategy and IP litigation.

Melanie has a great deal of experience in both contentious and non-contentious matters and has advised a wide range of clients, both in the UK and internationally, including start-ups, small businesses and international corporations. It is not unusual for Melanie to be supporting the perceived underdog when it comes to establishing and defending an earlier rights position.

Melanie was accredited to appear before the European Union Intellectual Property Office (EUIPO) in both trade mark and design matters prior to Brexit and retains her connections to ensure the smooth running of trade mark related actions in these jurisdictions continue. She has audience rights before the UK’s dedicated IP court, the Intellectual Property Enterprise Court (IPEC).

Having previously chaired the Europe & Central Asia subcommittee of INTA’s Non-Traditional Marks Committee, this was followed by participation in the Trademark Office and Practices Committee and European sub-committee to provide up-to-date UK trade mark practice and guidance – 4 years were spent on each Committee. Currently as of 2024, Melanie is working with INTA’s International Amicus Committee with a focus on European cases, providing recommendations to the Executive Committee where INTA may wish to via an amicus curiae (“friend of the courts”) briefs or similar filings covering Trade mark, unfair competition and IP-related Laws. Committee work includes evaluating request to file, monitoring leading cases, and drafting submissions where no conflict arises.

More recently, she became an Editor for Sweet & Maxwell CITMA & CIPA Trade Mark Handbook, the definitive guide for all things UK trade mark law and practice related, plus relevant aspects of European and International law as appropriate.