Bruce Cockerton

Bruce’s chemistry practice covers both industrial and medicinal chemistry, encompassing polymer chemistry, composite materials, batteries and electrodes, food chemistry, catalysts, functional coatings, pigments and printing inks, apparel and textiles, laundry technology and targeted drug delivery. Bruce has a long and successful history in contentious proceedings at the European Patent Office (EPO), appearing frequently before the Opposition Divisions and Technical Boards of Appeal. Bruce focuses much of his time on 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. As well as advising large multi-national corporations, Bruce has particular experience in collaborating with UK start-ups and SMEs to generate and grow patent portfolios for new developments in emerging sectors, particularly in cleantech.

Acting for significant UK clients highlights Bruce’s comprehensive abilities 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 complement 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. Bruce studied 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.