Unitalen Attorneys at Law has rapidly grown in the past couple years, expanding to 21 offices in China and 262 IP professionals. The team of 94 lawyers, 145 patent attorneys and 66 trade mark attorneys is led by managing partner Bradley Yu and four partners. The firm has a mix of domestic and international clients that include Bank of China, Toyota, Microsoft and Xiuzheng Pharmaceutical.
Friendly rivals note the firm's strength in trade mark prosecution. One said: "Unitalen has very good quality control in place."
The firm welcomed new partner Min Dong and patent attorneys Ning Wang and Zhitao Lang last year. Lang has a background as a patent examiner for SIPO, and is expected to lend her experience to beef up the patent practice.
The team acted on behalf of Ashland in protecting its trade secrets relating to the manufacturing process of a unique polymer for water treatment during papermaking. Patent litigation and trade secret litigation commenced in 2011 before Suzhou Intermediate Court against a local Chinese company for using the patented process to produce infringing products. The outcome is the second largest settlement damages awarded for a patent case in China amounting to Rmb 22 million ($3.54 million).
Louis Vuitton is another high profile client, and the firm represented the company in a trade mark litigation case recognised as one of Guangzhou's top IP cases of 2012. The dispute involved a Chinese company infringing Louis Vuitton's trade mark LV, its equivalent in Chinese characters 路易威真 (lùyìwēizhēn) as well as its flower design patent. The Guangdong Higher Court affirmed the Intermediate Court's decision ordering the Chinese company to stop the infringing activities and awarded Louis Vuitton Rmb 2 million ($322,000) in damages.