With extensive reach across four continents, we are the only integrated law firm in the world with approximately 200 lawyers in each of the world’s three largest financial centers—New York, London and Hong Kong—the backbone of the global economy.
We have deep experience in high-stakes litigation and complex transactions across industry sectors, including our signature strength, the global financial services industry.
Our diverse teams of lawyers are recognized by our clients as strategic partners with deep commercial instincts and a commitment to creatively anticipating their needs and delivering excellence in everything we do.
Our “one-firm” culture—seamless and integrated across all practices and regions—ensures that our clients receive the best of our knowledge and experience.
Founded in 1863
200 people in their team
Mayer Brown's Hong Kong office is home to one of the largest and longest-established law firms in Hong Kong. Conveniently located in Central, we have approximately 200 lawyers based in Hong Kong, specialising in various industries. We provide clients with a full and integrated range of legal services.
Mayer Brown provides pragmatic and commercial legal advice to Chinese and Asian companies looking to grow locally, regionally and internationally. We also assist clients in Europe, the Americas and the Middle East to invest in Asia.
The Employment & Benefits group at Mayer Brown has lawyers in key business centers across the United States, Europe and Asia. Our multidisciplinary group offers sophisticated solutions to the most complex employment and benefits related issues facing our clients. Our clients are among the largest businesses in the world with members of the Fortune 100, FTSE 100, DAX and Hang Seng frequently seeking our counsel on employment law and benefits strategies across the myriad regulatory environments in which they may find themselves.
Innovators at many of the world’s largest multinational corporations, emerging-growth companies and established mid-sized businesses all rely on Mayer Brown to help protect, preserve and enforce their intellectual property assets.
In a global economy where intellectual property concerns transcend national borders, Mayer Brown offers clients a truly global platform with extensive reach across four continents, including strength-in-depth in each of the world’s three largest financial centers—New York, London and Hong Kong. We are uniquely positioned with a full-service IP practice that is fully integrated with other practices, providing antitrust guidance on transactions and competition disputes and unsurpassed appellate capabilities before the federal courts, the US Supreme Court and international tribunals.
This global capability encompasses a large team of IP practitioners, located throughout the United States (with many of our lawyers admitted before the US Patent and Trademark Office), in each of the key European business centers (particularly London, Frankfurt and Düsseldorf), in Asia (with a strong presence in Hong Kong and Mainland China), and Brazil. In addition, we have relationships with firms around the globe to help us meet our clients’ worldwide IP needs.
We take a multidisciplinary approach to today’s emerging issues in the development, protection and exploitation of intellectual property assets. We don’t just identify risks and problems—we deliver practical and pragmatic solutions, leveraging our deep market and sector experience to be commercially astute in providing counsel.
Lawyers in Mayer Brown’s Intellectual Property practice deliver extremely high and uncompromising standards of quality, and our advice is delivered in the context of the strategic goals and operational needs of each client. We collaborate to select the right options to fit each client’s business strategy, whether they are assessing an IP portfolio, performing due diligence for an acquisition, securing a trademark or copyright, or using litigation to resolve business disputes over patent, trademark or copyright infringement or misappropriation. We help our clients protect their investment, increase their market share and strengthen their competitive advantage. We are true interactive and strategic partners with every client.
Mayer Brown was recognized as Law360’s Intellectual Property Practice Group of the Year in 2017 and as 2016 Life Sciences Practice Group of the Year as well as Technology Practice Group of the Year. In 2017 U.S. News and World Report’s Best Law Firms as a Tier 1 firm across the board for IP Litigation, Patent Litigation, Copyright, Patent and Trademark Law. In addition, leading ranking publications such as Chambers and Partners, Legal 500 and IAM Patent 1000 continually recognize our Intellectual Property group's excellence in the marketplace. Chambers USA quoted clients who noted that they “treat us like partners; communication is fantastic, and they make sure that we always understand what is going on.” In Asia, our practice has received numerous awards, including "Copyright Firm of the Year" in 2016 and 2017 by Asia IP. We are consistently ranked a top-tier firm for Patent and Trademark/Copyright in Hong Kong and China in Asian Legal Business' IP Rankings.
The fact that we handle a full range of complex technologies reflects the fact that many of our lawyers have technical degrees in such fields as electrical and mechanical engineering, computer science, chemistry and microbiology. A number of them have worked as scientists and engineers before becoming lawyers. Indeed, we not only know IP law, but we understand its practical and commercial application.
Litigation and Enforcement
Clients throughout the world rely on Mayer Brown to fully protect their intellectual property assets and to aggressively enforce them. We represent clients as plaintiffs and defendants in claims involving patent, trademark and copyright infringement, unfair competition, false advertising, trade secret misappropriation and IP-related antitrust violations. At the federal trial court level in the United States, we handle disputes involving a variety of applications, including pharmaceutical, business method, biotech and electronics. In addition, our litigators have a proven track record of success with Section 337 litigation at the International Trade Commission. Because of our firm’s strong antitrust practice, we can handle any IP claim that has antitrust implications.
With the nation’s oldest and largest appellate and Supreme Court practice, Mayer Brown is highly experienced at handling IP cases in the Supreme Court and the Federal Circuit. The scope of our appellate experience means greater efficiency and effectiveness for our clients at every level of the appellate process.
We also conduct complex IP litigation before the specialized chambers of German District Courts, Courts of Appeals and the German Supreme Court (where upwards of 70 percent of the European patent litigation occurs), and are active in the courts of the United Kingdom and France, as well as the European Court of Justice and Court of First Instance. For clients with cross-border IP disputes, our lawyers appear before the International Trade Commission, the American Arbitration Association, and the Court of Arbitration of the International Chamber of Commerce.
Counseling and Prosecution
Mayer Brown gives intellectual property clients a comprehensive approach to their IP portfolio. We work with clients in developing and protecting their intellectual property to meet current business objectives and to anticipate future needs. By taking such a complete approach to IP portfolio management, we can begin to protect IP assets from the moment of creation and help clients build a profitable IP portfolio. This approach includes leveraging Mayer Brown’s firm-wide capabilities to ensure maximum tax advantage, effective licensing protection and even the securitization of revenue streams from intellectual property assets.
We excel at working in collaboration with clients to create a strategic plan for building and protecting all IP assets. Our lawyers will identify any necessary steps to change the way rights are developed and protected, including trade secret procedures, employment agreements, registration and enforcement. Such broad strategic vision is typical of all Mayer Brown’s intellectual property services–and is why companies that have invested in developing their intellectual property assets depend on us.
With our broad technical experience, we prepare and prosecute patent applications across a full spectrum of technologies–pharmaceutical, biotechnology, chemical, electrical and mechanical products, software and business methods. In addition to a cadre of experienced patent lawyers and agents in the United States, we work with local patent counsel around the world to ensure our clients’ inventions are protected.
Add to all this such advantages as secure, web-based extranet access to patent and trademark files for lower cost and better communication, and our patent and trademark prosecution strengths offer a clear competitive edge to every client.
Transactions
Our cutting-edge Technology & IP Transactions practice helps companies accelerate their growth through strategic alliances and other business combinations and IP and data monetization. We routinely work with our M&A, Capital Markets, Emerging Companies & Venture Capital, Fintech, Insurtech, Cybersecurity & Data Privacy, Antitrust, Tax and Structured Finance colleagues on transactional matters, including negotiating and preparing domestic and international license and transfer agreements, performing due diligence reviews, and designing intellectual property strategies for corporate mergers, acquisitions, divestures, joint ventures and corporate reorganizations.
We advise on patent, trade secret, trademark, data, and other IP licenses; software licenses (including for ERP systems); open source counseling and analysis; and technology transfer and sharing agreements, among other matters. We anticipate strategically important shifts and respond to market conditions with an approach that is both sophisticated and pragmatic.
We also excel at helping clients navigate the increasingly congested intersection between intellectual property and antitrust, both in the United States and Europe. (In fact, one of our lawyers was involved in drafting the 1995 DOJ and FTC Guidelines on the Licensing of Intellectual Property, which also has influenced EU antitrust policies.) We know how to structure intellectual property rights pools and distribution agreements (including field of use, geographic and price restraints) in ways to comply with the competition laws in any jurisdiction worldwide.
And we know how to innovate. Mayer Brown helped pioneer the securitization of IP assets by representing the underwriters of future royalty streams from music portfolios and continues to structure offerings involving many copyrighted works and trademark rights. We see opportunities other firms don’t—and help our clients take advantage of them.
Few industries are as influenced by fluctuating economic conditions around the world as the trillion-dollar real estate sector. Few firms are as well positioned to respond to these conditions as Mayer Brown, which serves as a trusted advisor to our clients across the world’s largest financial centers.
In today’s increasingly complex and ever-changing global real estate market, clients depend on Mayer Brown to understand the interwoven ownership, management and operational aspects of the industry and to offer sound, strategic advice and judgment to help them formulate and drive commercial and legal decisions.
Our Real Estate Markets practice—a core global practice for Mayer Brown, comprising over 200 lawyers across four continents—offers in-depth, cross-border and local knowledge from established teams in markets throughout the world. We manage some of the industry’s most complex deals from all sides and leverage that rich knowledge and experience on behalf of our clients.
