ブルース・コッカートン Bruce Cockerton

Bruce’s practice is focussed on industrial chemistry, including polymer production and processing, apparel and textiles, laundry technology, food chemistry and specialty chemicals, and encompasses reactor design, process engineering and the apparatus associated with these industries. Bruce has extensive experience in contentious proceedings in the European Patent Office (EPO), appearing frequently before the Opposition Divisions and Technical Boards of Appeal.

Much of Bruce’s time is spent advising long-standing clients whose commercial interests lie in established technologies, which can present a challenge in carving out commercially useful protection in a crowded patent landscape, and Bruce has particular expertise in generating patent portfolios for new developments in emerging sectors within these established fields. Acting for significant UK clients means that Bruce is well-versed in drafting new patent specifications which, coupled with his familiarity of contentious proceedings in the EPO, provides invaluable expertise in generating the best possible scope of patent protection for new and developing products. He is responsible for establishing filing strategies and generating and managing large world-wide patent portfolios, with extensive experience in patent prosecution outside Europe, particularly in the US, Japan and China.

Bruce’s approach relies on attention to detail in order to deliver pragmatic advice to best serve his clients’ commercial interests. His work has garnered praise in the independent guides to the legal profession, having been recognised as ‘tenacious’ in the Legal 500 publication.

Bruce joined the firm in 1997, becoming a partner in 2001. His academic studies were at University College London where he graduated with a first class honours degree in general chemistry, collecting several prizes for academic performance along the way. Bruce’s doctorate focussed on the synthesis and chemistry of transition metal carbonyl clusters, studied particularly with the aid of X-ray crystallography and multi-dimensional NMR techniques.