Having started his legal career at the firm as a Trainee, Huw returns as a Partner in our IP practice. Huw reflects on his first in-house role, developments in the IP landscape, the future of IP and his ambitions for the firm’s IP practice.
Looking back, what are your strongest memories from your time training at Eversheds Sutherland, and are there any lessons or experiences from those early years that still influence you today?
My strongest memory is of the people. I started as a paralegal in the Pensions team in Birmingham, and that team of brilliant people supported me to get my training contract. Lots of those people are still in the firm, and it’s been amazing to reconnect with them since I’ve rejoined.
Following your time with us, you moved to an in-house IP and advertising position, before moving back into private practice. What did you miss about private practice, and did you ever consider moving back in-house?
I loved my time in-house. Tesco was an amazing place to start a legal career – it was fast-paced and I was able to make decisions for the business which made a real impact. In that sense, it was very different to private practice. For me, the desire to move back into private practice was driven by wanting to work for more than one client. I now work for clients big and small across (almost) all sectors, and that variety is what makes it interesting every day.
Returning to the firm as a partner must feel quite different from leaving as a trainee. What attracted you back to Eversheds Sutherland, and how has the firm evolved since your first stint here?
It’s slightly bizarre to tell the truth! But it’s been very positive, and the welcome I’ve had from everyone I knew back then could not have been warmer. I was attracted back to Eversheds Sutherland primarily by two things: first, a real fondness for the firm, with good memories of the culture and the people. Second, it was the firm’s keenness to invest in and grow the intellectual property team – it’s an amazing opportunity to be part of that.
Intellectual Property has been a key focus throughout your career. What is it about this area of law that you find most interesting and rewarding?
IP is an area which clients love to talk about. People are passionate about their ideas, creations, inventions, and it’s fascinating to work with people and businesses to protect and exploit those assets. It’s also much easier to talk about at a dinner party than certain other areas of law…!
What developments are you seeing in the IP landscape that organisations should be paying particular attention to?
AI is an obvious example, raising so many questions: Has the model infringed IP rights in the materials that have been used to train it? Are there IP rights in an output? Who owns the output? Does the output infringe rights in the input? They’re all huge questions which the courts and governments are grappling with across the world. It will take years to get to the bottom of these issues, creating a significant opportunity for us to counsel clients through this period of uncertainty. Aside from that, one area which is really interesting is ‘dupe’ products. These aren’t counterfeits, they’re simply ‘lookalikes’ which a big proportion of consumers want to buy. From an IP perspective, they present a huge challenge for brand owners to tackle, as they test the limits of what IP rights can protect in their products which have been ‘duped’.
Looking ahead, what are your ambitions for the IP practice at Eversheds Sutherland, and what interests you most about the future of IP and working with clients in this space?
In a word: growth. Eversheds Sutherland has a strong reputation and I want to build on that - bringing in new clients, deepening existing relationships, and making our IP practice a genuine go-to for businesses. The firm's global network is a huge asset here. What excites me most is being able to offer clients a joined-up service: not just "here's the legal answer," but "here's the legal answer, here's what it means commercially, and here's how we can deal with that across multiple jurisdictions." That kind of seamless, strategic advice is where real value lies and it's the kind of practice I want to help build.
To round things off, tell us: what do you enjoy doing to switch off a recharge? OR Tell us something that people might not know about you?
Outside of work, I spend most of my time chasing my son around the house (trying to stop him putting his fingers in a plug socket!). Otherwise, I can usually be found on my bike (recent trip to Brighton in the photo below), or cooking for some friends.
