Pete is a Lawyer in Intellectual Property team in Melbourne.
He began his career at K&L Gates as a Paralegal in the IP team, where he excelled at trade mark portfolio management. Pete now works as a lawyer representing clients responsible for some of the biggest brands in Australia and internationally. His has extensive experience in both contentious and non-contentious matters and repesents clients in trade mark, copyright, designs and associated trade practices litigation.
Professional Background
Prior to joining K&L Gates, Pete worked as a Pharmacist for eight years in a range of community and hospital roles. He has been able to apply his knowledge of chemistry, pharmaceuticals and healthcare to legal issues, particularly in relation to brand protection, trademarks and patents.
Representative Experience
Represented Swancom Pty Ltd (Swancom) in a Federal Court of Australia proceeding regarding the usage of the name of Swancon's iconic Melbourne hotel and music venue, the Corner Hotel.
- Advising LK Property Group (owner of the Australian National Basketball League (NBL), Melbourne United (football) and other companies) in relation to its trade mark portfolio, protection and oppositions.
- Prosecuting, managing and enforcing Australian and international intellectual property portfolios for a range of clients, including Origin Energy Limited and A2B Australia Limited.
- Managing the intellectual property portfolio of the Australian Football League (AFL). This involves protecting the intellectual property of the league and its 18 clubs and advising generally on branding issues for the AFL. In managing this portfolio, we also handled Federal Court of Australia litigation against a national retailer that continued to sell unauthorised product. We were also involved in the selection of the team names for the 17th and 18th AFL teams and has advised regarding numerous domain names and online issues. In 2017 we assisted the AFL with the launch of the highly successful AFLW (AFL Womens) competition which led to an array of new trade mark filings relating to the women's football competition. All of the applications that we cleared were accepted for registration.
