Trade Mark Attorneys to Sponsor Design Week Awards

The Institute of Trade Mark Attorneys (ITMA) is to sponsor the Design Week Awards 2008 for the third consecutive year.

Announcing the decision, ITMA President Philip Harris said:

“This is the twentieth year that Design Week has been running their awards ceremony and we are delighted to be sponsoring the category of Identity Programmes. Last year’s winners in this category, which ITMA also sponsored, were Johnson Banks for their stunning designs for Blackpool Pleasure Beach. We are hopeful that an equally deserving winner will emerge from this year’s entrants.”

“We at ITMA see these awards as an excellent way of informing the design community about the importance of protecting their designs and to do so by using only fully qualified professionals such as members of our Institute.”

“In my view, the creative industries in the UK are the best in the world and it seems incredulous to me that so little is really known or understood about the measures available for protecting the creations that make the UK the envy of the world.”

“Design protection in the form of registered designs is relatively cheap and yet affords designers with a solid legal asset that enables them to prevent others from copying and capitalizing on their creativity.”

“Members of ITMA are all too willing to advise and assist designers in protecting their assets and a full listing of all our members throughout the UK can be found on our website www.itma.org.uk or from the Institute office (Tel: 020 8686 2052).”

1. The Institute of Trade Mark Attorneys (ITMA) was established in 1934 as the professional body representing those persons qualified to act for the owners of trade mark and allied intellectual property rights (in particular, registered designs) both nationally and internationally. It now represents the vast majority of UK registered trade mark agents and all UK Trade Mark & Design Litigators.

2. Currently ITMA has approximately 500 practising members; it also extends associate membership to professionals in related fields of law and overseas membership to foreign trade mark attorneys. Its total membership (all classes) is about 1600 members, primarily located in the United Kingdom and Europe, but also in more than 50 other countries.

3. ITMA is regularly consulted by UK government and by international bodies when questions affecting trade mark and allied intellectual property rights arise. It has regular meetings with the UK Intellectual Property Office, the Community Trade Marks Office (OHIM), the World Intellectual Property Organisation (WIPO) and other sister organisations in Europe and beyond. For more information visit www.itma.org.uk.

4. ITMA first sponsored the Design Week awards in 2006 in the category of Own Brand Packaging which was won by Williams Murray Hamm for their Sainsbury’s Organic foods range. In 2007 Johnson Banks won the Identity Programmes category for their Blackpool Pleasure Beach design. Entries for the 2008 awards will be announced in Design Week shortly - see www.designweekawards.co.uk. To mark the 20th year of the awards Design Week will be introducing a “Hall of Fame”. Individuals who have made a significant contribution to design will be being inaugurated into the Hall of Fame at the awards ceremony.

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