CITMA members to offer free advice online

2nd Sep 2020

Small business owners will be able to access free online advice on trade marks from qualified CITMA members thanks to a new initiative.

Advice clinic

The 30-minute clinic sessions will be provided for free to small business owners who need advice on their trade marks. 

Business owners requesting a clinic will be paired up with a specialist volunteer legal professional. They will be able to offer 30 minutes’ free advice on protecting trade marks and avoiding infringement. 

All volunteers offering advice are qualified and regulated legal professionals who are members of CITMA.  

The new clinic format replaces an in-person scheme which ran in London in conjunction with the UK Intellectual Property Office

Free trade mark advice clinics have been running for more than 15 years and have helped hundreds of small businesses. 

Since 2017 alone CITMA clinics have helped 129 small businesses. It is expected that the new online version will have a much wider reach. 

CITMA President Richard Goddard said: “Our new advice clinic offering will be able to reach a more diverse range of businesses regardless of their location. 

“Intellectual property is valuable to all businesses. It is important for businesses to be able to protect the value in their intellectual property and to know what to do if their rights are infringed.

“These clinics will help small businesses to unlock some of this potential and help them to avoid inadvertently infringing existing rights.” 

Read more about our clinics