Spoor & Fisher

Spoor & Fisher handles the filing, registration, prosecution and enforcement of trade marks, patents, designs and copyright. Clients also choose us to draft agreements for their commercial intellectual property (IP) transactions and to negotiate the best terms. Our intricate knowledge of over 80 different intellectual property (IP) laws and practices across our core geographical regions - Africa and the Caribbean - means that we create and implement robust intellectual property (IP) protection strategies.

Consistency in quality and record-keeping comes with having Spoor & Fisher as a single point of contact to manage entire intellectual property (IP) portfolios. We work directly with corporates - global companies to small businesses - their main legal advisors as well as inventors. Clients from across the globe, including Africa-based businesses, have asked us to help protect and enforce their intellectual property (IP) assets in their chosen markets.

We have 60 lawyers and over 250 staff across our offices in South Africa (Pretoria, Cape Town and Johannesburg) and 6 directors, 1 consultant and 90 staff in our Channel Islands (Jersey) office.

Over the years, we have opened local offices across Africa, including Gambia, Ghana, Malawi, Zambia, OAPI (via Cameroon) and ARIPO (via Malawi). We have a direct filing presence in Sierra Leone and Zanzibar. Where we do not have offices and where we cannot file directly, we work with carefully selected local associates.

Our business is grouped into 12 teams specialising in trade marks, patents, copyright, registered designs, anti-counterfeiting, commercial ip, ip valuations, domain names, litigation, plant breeders' rights, regulatory and utility models.

We are pioneers for intellectual property (IP) in Africa in particular - our lawyers have written the leading text books, drafted laws and been involved in several of the most important cases in Africa.

Examples of our recent industry awards include:

Managing Intellectual Property Magazine ("MIP") Africa Law Firm of the Year 2018, 2019 and 2020
MIP South Africa Law Firm of the Year 2015, 2016, 2017 and 2019
Global IP Awards: South African Trademark Firm of the Year 2019 and 2020
Innovation & IP Forum and Awards (INIFA): Gold Award, Best IP Advisor, Africa and Middle East 2018 and 2019
Professional Management Review Africa (Pty) Ltd (PMR) Awards: Africa Diamond Arrow Award for 'Specialist Legal Services Practices: Intellectual Property' 2011 ? 2013, 2016, 2017, 2019 and 2020
The African Legal Awards 2017: specialist law firm of the year (Corporate Counsel Association of South Africa CCASA)

We are also ranked in the top band in the latest editions of various legal directories including The Legal 500, Chambers, World Trade Mark Review and Managing Intellectual Property.

Practice Areas	No. of Attorneys
Antitrust and Competition	1
Entertainment and New Media	1
IP	2