John Sykes

                                                 

John Sykes

John Sykes has been a Partner at Lupton Fawcett since 1992, then member and director at Lupton Fawcett Lee & Priestley.

He graduated in Business Administration, Edinburgh, and then qualified as a solicitor.

John trained as a patent attorney in the offices of two leading patent attorney practices.

John is a CEDR trained mediator.

John received his Diploma in EC competition law from Kings College, London and has now received his Masters with Merit.

He is listed as an expert in his field in Chambers UK: A client's guide to the legal profession, and the Legal 500 directories.  In the recent editions he has been described as:

 “…especially good, he really knows his stuff…”, “Pioneering…”,

“…doyen of IP…”, an “effective communicator”, ‘his “accurate, common-sense approach makes him a favourite with clients",

in the 2011 edition of Chambers, "John Sykes is an absolutely superb solicitor and advises on complex transactions and the protection of IP rights.  Clients say his "advice is always clear and commercial, and he gives you the robust guidance needed to help you make a proper decision"

and in the 2012 edition of Chambers, " John Sykes is a patent lawyer who has a wealth of expertise in design law. Sources say: "He's very good at troubleshooting - he always comes up with things we haven't thought about."

John advises on:

• transactions involving intellectual property both in my home country and internationally, often leading teams working on major transactions.
• businesses about the application of EC and UK competition law in relation to the deals they are doing or proposed new ventures or market initiatives.
• the enforcement of patents, trade marks, designs, and other intellectual property rights or defending infringement claims.

Over the last twenty years John has handled many landmark intellectual property disputes. He has worked equally for gamekeepers and poachers. A few of these cases include House of Spring Gardens -v- Waite and Others (1982, HCt) (patents and copyright case), Improver -v- Remmington (1990, Court of Appeal) (patent case), Portakabin -v- Powerblast (1991, HCt) (trade mark case), 1-800 Flowers Inc (2002, Court of Appeal) (trademark case), Tyco European Metal Framing -v- New Systems (2002, HCt) (design case), Paxman –v- Hughes (Court of Appeal, 2006) (patent case).

Professional Societies

•  Law Society
• Chartered Institute of Patent Agents (Ass)

Articles/Books

• Valuation and Exploitation of Intellectual Property and Intangible Assets.
• Intellectual property in designs.
• Chartered Institute of Patent Agents/Trade Mark Agents – UK and EU Design Manual, contributor.

Personal Information

John is married with four children. He enjoys riding and golf with his family and one day will get back to yacht racing. He is a Governor of Leeds Trinity University College.