People

Smart & Biggar is Canada’s largest and highest ranked intellectual property firm. Our reputation and strength is a measure of the quality of our people, and we are proud to have the broadest and deepest bench for IP in Canada. With over 100 lawyers, patent agents and trademark agents, we offer legal expertise and technological knowledge across a wide range of industries and scientific and engineering disciplines, with leaders in every field.

Services

Today’s fast-paced innovation economy demands a higher level of expertise and attention to detail when it comes to IP. Our highly skilled team of lawyers, patent agents and trademark agents advise clients on a wide variety of strategic business, brand and technology matters leveraging their deep expertise in intellectual property to help them succeed with IP.

Industries

Across all industries, intellectual property is at the heart of innovation and is key to accelerating business value and growth. Developing a clear IP strategy and knowing how to tap and leverage IP to align with business goals can unlock competitive advantages and make the difference between industry leaders and followers.

Insights

At the forefront of IP in Canada, and actively involved as leaders in industry committees and associations, we stay up-to-date and proactively report on the latest developments in intellectual property law in Canada and around the world. Breaking IP news, changes in the law, important new decisions, and information on key IP issues are provided here through our IP publications and resources.

Careers

Many of the world's most commercially important innovators and most prominent brands trust Smart & Biggar to protect and enforce their IP and to provide them with strategic IP counsel. We have developed a reputation as a firm of talented lawyers and patent and trademark agents with integrity, business savvy and tremendous acumen. That’s why we look for the brightest people with combined talent and strengths in law, business, science and technology.

Who we are

Smart & Biggar is widely recognized as Canada’s leading firm for intellectual property, and with over 100 lawyers, patent agents and trademark agents in five offices, we are also Canada’s largest firm focused purely on IP and related specialty areas.

Rankings & Recognition

Smart & Biggar recognized as Canada’s leading intellectual property litigation firm five years in a row

March 08, 2019

Smart & Biggar was recognized for its outstanding IP litigation strength and named “Intellectual Property Firm of the Year” by Benchmark Canada for the fifth year in a row at the Benchmark Litigation Canada 2019 awards held in Toronto on March 7th.

We are proud to receive this award year over year in recognition for the victories we have won for our clients, in high stakes litigation and in all areas of IP. Our litigators are efficient and highly effective, and above all they bring a rare combination of successful trial experience and deep sophisticated subject matter expertise and analysis. This allows us to provide our clients with a competitive advantage through powerful and effective IP enforcement and litigation strategies.

The firm also received the following awards:

'IP Litigation Lawyer of the Year'

Winner: Gunars Gaikis

Gunars has appeared as lead counsel in many precedent setting IP cases before the Ontario, Federal and Supreme courts, including the June 30, 2017 Supreme Court of Canada decision in AstraZeneca v Apotex, which struck down the “promise of the patent” utility doctrine. He was recently named by Benchmark Canada as one of the ‘Top 50 Trial Lawyers’ in Canada in 2018.

‘National Impact Case of the Year’

MIPS AB v Bauer Hockey Ltd and Bauer Hockey LLC
Led by: Francois Guay, Jeremy Want and Jean-Sebastien Dupont

Long-time client Bauer was successfully represented by our powerhouse ligation team in proceedings instituted by MIPS, a Swedish helmet technology company, against Bauer in the Federal Court of Canada. In the case, MIPS claimed that Bauer infringed its patent 2,798,542 relating to rotational energy-absorbing sports helmets for minimizing brain injury, and sought to have 4 of Bauer’s patents for the market-leading RE-AKT and RE-AKT 100 helmets declared invalid. Bauer denied infringement and vigorously defended the validity of its patents. The legal proceedings against Bauer were initially instituted in early 2015 with the trial taking place over 6 weeks in 2017 and a judgement issued on May 7, 2018 (2018 FC 485).

About Benchmark Litigation Canada

Benchmark Litigation Canada is the definitive guide to Canada’s leading litigation law firms and lawyers. The results are derived from extensive peer reviews and interviews with Canadian litigators and clients to identify and recognize the top lawyers and firms in Canada for exceptional work across all areas of litigation.

Smart & Biggar is Canada's largest firm practising exclusively in intellectual property and technology law, with offices in Ottawa, Toronto, Montreal, Vancouver and Calgary. We are leaders in intellectual property and technology law and have been serving clients for over a century.