Opening up offices in the United States has generally been a tough ask for UK companies, and success can be hard to come by. However, for Glasgow headquartered patent and trade mark attorneys, Murgitroyd, the decision to open up an office in the USA ten years ago has proved to be hugely important to the firm’s present success.
Ed Murgitroyd, son of the firm’s Founder and Non-Executive Chairman, Ian Murgitroyd, and the person responsible for launching the firm’s US initiative, points out that the company now derives around 50 percent of its revenue from its US operations.
“The first few years were hard going, no doubt about that. My first office in the US was a windowless room”, Ed recalls.
The company’s message to US firms, right from the start, was that if they had a requirement to file patents, trade marks and design rights anywhere in Europe, then Murgitroyd had the local resources and expertise in the UK and on the Continent, to enable them to achieve their goals.
“We knew, before I set out for the US with my wife, that the United States is the world’s biggest filer of European patents. We also knew that it was a great opportunity to build on our success up until that point in Europe and take Murgitroyd to the next level”, he notes.
Murgitroyd is a listed company and a combination of growth and great customer service was fundamental to both the Board’s ambitions and to the firm fulfilling its responsibilities to shareholders.
“My wife was American, so although it was a fairly daunting prospect, to be opening up an office in what for me was a strange country, we thought we’d go over and give it a proper go. I don’t want to minimise the difficulty for anyone setting up in the US for the first time. Those opening two years were really tough,” Ed says.
“However, within a year or so I was fortunate enough to secure the services of a great Chief Marketing Officer. He brought a truly professional touch to our sales and marketing efforts and we really started to get some traction, selling our European patent and trade mark services to a broad spectrum of US companies,” he comments.
Both then and now, Silicon Valley proved to be one of the most fruitful sales areas for the company. “Silicon Valley produces about as many UK and European patent applications as the whole of the US East Coast. So it continues to be a very key focus for us,” he notes.
The firm now has fifteen European offices, two offices in the US, in Durham and Santa Clara, and an office in Nicaragua which specialises in patent searches. It also works with trusted partner firms worldwide. “Taken together, this gives us an outstanding global reach, and the ability to represent our clients wherever they require,” Ed says.
“Our expertise is to enable our clients to get whatever form of intellectual property (IP) protection best suits their requirements, anywhere in Europe or the UK. We do not compete with US attorneys filing patents and trade marks in the US, which means they too can partner with us to assist their clients.”
Murgitroyd has had a number of successes helping US companies to defend their patents in either the UK or Europe. “Things do not always need to go to court. Often we can secure a licensing or royalty deal that is acceptable to all parties. Similarly, if our clients require it we will look to strike down patents on their behalf that are unacceptable,” he explains.
One of Murgitroyd’s great assets is that the firm brings together all the strands involved in IP protection. These strands include the attorney side of the business and the various IP support services that we provide. “A lot of our competitors have one or other of these strands in their business. Very few are able to offer the complete range of services, and that is very attractive for clients,” Ed says.
Murgitroyd recently acquired a Southampton-based firm of patent and trade mark attorneys. Ed points out that this demonstrates the extent to which the firm is investing in the attorney side of the business, giving it a powerful team to represent client interests.
The firm has also invested heavily in IT. “The aim, as always, is to ensure that we are able to do the “commodity” elements of the business in the most cost efficient way for our clients. For example, each country has patent renewal fees that come around every year. You need strong IT support systems to stay on top of these types of things for clients,” he comments.
“We have a very strong technology platform both for our internal use and to help us provide a tremendous level of customer care for our clients. When a US customer talks to our US office, it is very easy for them to see that we are in a great position to coordinate all their activities for them,” he concludes.
“I believe we have the right resources to take us forward to further success in the US and worldwide, and I’m really excited about the next ten years”.
For more information please visit the Murgitroyd website.
This article appeared in the 21st March edition of The Herald's Business HQ Magazine
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