Leading IP Lawyer to move to Fieldfisher from Dentons

Fieldfisher has hired John Linneker from Dentons to join its highly acclaimed IP practice.

International law firm Fieldfisher has hired Dentons' former UK head of IP and chair of its global trademark practice group, John Linneker.

John has been an equity partner at Dentons since 2005 and was head of the UK IP team until his resignation. Prior to that he was at Taylor Wessing between 1990 and 2005. He will join Fieldfisher on 12th February.

John specialises in all aspects of IP law and is most well-known for his contentious IP work having acted on many high profile disputes in recent years. These have included acting for Lotus Sports Cars in connection with a dispute with 1 Malaysia Racing over ownership of the Lotus brand in Formula 1 and Schutz v. Werit, a patent dispute which went to the Supreme Court in 2013.

Nick Rose, head of IP and technology litigation at Fieldfisher, said: "John has a tremendous breadth of experience advising on some incredibly complex global IP mandates. This will be appreciated by our clients and by our team, bringing a deep understanding of an even wider range of sectors and jurisdictions."

John Linneker commented: "I am delighted to be joining Fieldfisher's highly rated IP team and look forward to helping the group achieve even greater success in the future."

Leighton Cassidy, head of trade mark and brand protection at Fieldfisher, said: "We are all looking forward to working with John who is one of the most respected names in one of the most competitive legal disciplines. IP has long been one of Fieldfisher's own most successful brands and that he has agreed to join us is further evidence of this."

IP is one of Fieldfisher's core practices with over 60 lawyers and last year had a turnover of over £13m. It has a substantial IP litigation practice covering the full range of IP rights and advises on and coordinates global IP strategies, often fighting numerous disputes on multiple fronts at any one time.

Fieldfisher's IP blog can be found at: https://intellectualpropertyblog.fieldfisher.com/

In its financial year to the end of April, Fieldfisher posted a global increase in turnover to £165m and an increase in profit per equity partner of 16 per cent. It also opened six new offices from Birmingham to China and hired a record number of 23 lateral partners.