Lewis Silkin expands IP practice to Leeds with legal director appointment
22 January 2024
Lewis Silkin has today announced the appointment of Aaron Trebble as legal director in the firm’s Intellectual Property practice group. Based in Leeds, Aaron’s appointment marks the expansion of Lewis Silkin’s IP360 service to the city, further enhancing its offering to creative and innovative businesses in the north of England.
Joining Lewis Silkin from DLA Piper, Aaron is an experienced IP litigator as well as an expert in contentious data protection matters. Whilst his experience covers a broad range of sectors, he has a particular focus on issues affecting software, video games and technology businesses, including technology issues in the public sector. This includes having regularly advised on matters such as ownership and licensing of software, disputes involving rights ownership and software defects.
Aaron has worked with clients across a wide range of contentious and non-contentious intellectual property matters, encompassing brand protection; patent and trade mark disputes; copyright and design infringement; passing off and cyber-squatting; and intellectual property issues arising from corporate and commercial transactions. His contentious data practice includes disputes relating to subject access requests and compensation requests, ranging from discrete single party claims to complex multi-claimant matters.
Aaron has extensive experience of High Court and County Court proceedings, including applying for and defending applications for urgent injunctions and other interim relief, as well as securing and executing search orders and freezing injunctions with respect to anti-counterfeiting.
His appointment follows the launch of Lewis Silkin in Leeds in May 2023, and the expansion of the firm’s IP practice in the north of England led by partner Laura Harper - who joined the firm’s Manchester office in 2023.
Jo Farmer, Joint Managing Partner at Lewis Silkin, commented:
We are very pleased to welcome Aaron to Lewis Silkin. We’ve seen real momentum building following our launch in Leeds, and the addition of an IP offering in the city is the logical next step to enhance our client offering in the region – supported by Laura Harper in Manchester. It’s really exciting to see our People and Ideas model - driven by our market-leading employment and IP practices and which we’ve successfully rolled out across Hong Kong, Ireland and Manchester - now supporting our clients in Leeds and the wider region.
Aaron Trebble, Legal Director at Lewis Silkin, commented:
Lewis Silkin has built an enviable reputation for working with technology and IP-rich businesses, ranging from dynamic startups to complex multinational brands. Joining the firm and helping to bring this offering and experience into Leeds, and beyond, is incredibly exciting. Driven by rapid technological advancement, businesses are continuing to derive ever more value from their IP, and their data. But innovation is often a double-edged sword, with risks growing in scale and complexity – ranging from cybersecurity challenges to AI-powered rights creation and infringement. I very much look forward to working with my colleagues across the firm’s full service IP and data practices to help our clients navigate these challenges, and realise the opportunities that exist alongside them.