Sarah Wright > CMS > London, England > Lawyer Profile

CMS Offices

CMS
CANNON PLACE
78 CANNON STREET
LONDON
EC4N 6AF
England
Visit website 020 7367 3000 020 7367 2000

Sarah Wright

Sarah Wright photo
[email protected]

Position

Partner
Co-Head of Intellectual Property

Career

Sarah has built her leading IP practice advising companies on how to protect, monetise and enforce their brands and designs.

Sarah advises clients in the Technology, Media and Communications, Life Sciences & Healthcare, and Fashion and Retail sectors. She handles a broad range of IP work from devising trade mark filing strategies, conducting clearances searches and managing international portfolios, through to advising on all types of contentious matters before UKIPO, EUIPO and UK Courts.

In addition, Sarah has experience of non-contentious matters including drafting and negotiating all types of licensing and franchising arrangements and co-existence agreements. Having spent her formative years at a very large city firm, she is equally adept advising on the IP aspects of corporate acquisitions and disposals. Sarah also routinely advises agencies and brands on advertising issues including pre-clearance advice and assists clients with ASA complaints.

Alongside Sarah’s IP practice Sarah is also the co-founder of CMS equIP, the firm’s tech start-up programme which launched in 2016 and has become of the leading law firm programmes in the tech start-up arena in the UK, and which now has capability in multiple jurisdictions. Working with dynamic start-ups has honed Sarah’s ability to cut through detail and find pragmatic solutions for her clients, whatever their size.

Post-Brexit, Sarah continues to hold representation and audience rights before the EUIPO and the Court of Justice of the European Union. Sarah is English and Irish qualified, and she operates her EU trade mark and design practice from our Polish office.

Memberships

  • INTA: Emerging Issues Committee
  • CITMA, Associate Member
  • PTMG, Associate Member

Education

  • 2003 – Diploma in Intellectual Property Law, Bristol
  • 1997 – LLB Law and French Law, Liverpool
  • 1996 – Licence en Droit, Bordeaux

Lawyer Rankings

London > TMT (technology, media and telecoms) > Intellectual property: trade marks, copyright and design

(Hall of Fame)

Sarah Wright – CMS

Regarded as a ‘well-prepared’ team with ‘great technical knowledge’, CMS‘s breadth of practice is demonstrable through its involvement in copyright and design infringement cases, database right claims, and portfolio work, to name a few areas. The practice is spearheaded by Sarah Wright, who is routinely entrusted by blue-chip clients for advice on their new trade mark portfolios, Joel Vertes, who is highly capable of assisting clients with complex copyright and technology disputes, and Tom Scourfield, who is considered a tour-de-force in the consumer and retail sector. Louise Gellman principally focuses on the protection, exploitation, and enforcement of trade mark rights, with David Parrish also able to navigate through the lifecycle of trade mark rights with his clients. Caitlin Heard is well-versed in handling IP disputes arising from the technology sector. Other key names in the practice include Anna Brackenbury, Eleanor Merrett, and Ben Hitchens.

London > TMT (technology, media and telecoms) > PATMA: Trade mark attorneys

With access to a global network of offices situated across the UK, Europe, and Asia, CMS’s trade marks group provides clients with a seamless cross-border offering that encompasses all elements of soft IP mandates. This offering includes advice on due diligence, clearance, and transactional mandates, and prosecutions and contentious proceedings before the UKIPO and EPO, as well as strategic portfolio management. Dividing their time between London and Warsaw, Tom Scourfield and Sarah Wright jointly lead the team. Sheffield-based Eleanor Merrett is a trade mark attorney and litigator, and she is especially skilled in brand protection and enforcement. Dual-qualified trade mark attorney and solicitor Kelly Saliger is another active member of the team.

Lawyer Rankings

Top Tier Firm Rankings

Firm Rankings