Andrew Brown KC

• LL.B (Hons) - University of Auckland
• BCL (First Class) - University of Oxford

Andrew is at the forefront of intellectual property and civil litigation work in New Zealand. He has an LLB Honours from Auckland University and was a Rhodes Scholar at Oxford where he obtained a First in the BCL Degree. Andrew has been at the independent bar since 1998 and was made a QC in 2002. Formerly he was a litigation partner at Russell McVeagh.

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Intellectual Property Specialist

As a specialist in intellectual property, Andrew has handled extensive litigation in the High Court, Court of Appeal and Supreme Court – as well as numerous cases in the Trade Mark and Patent Office (IPONZ). Chambers Asia Pacific states that Andrew is “one of the top IP lawyers in the country and regularly acts in leading IP cases.” Andrew is listed in the World’s Leading Professionals 1000 as an expert in trade marks. He is also listed as an expert in trade marks, patents and life sciences by Who’s Who Legal and as an expert in patent and trade mark law by Expert Guides. Andrew has wide-ranging experience in copyright, patent, trade mark and trade secrets litigation – along with experience in trade mark applications and oppositions and branding advice and strategies. He regularly handles interim injunctions and other applications for urgent relief.

Advisor on Copyright and Licensing Issues

Andrew has also advised extensively on copyright and licensing issues and has done considerable work in the fields of music and sound recording copyright, publishing copyright and in cases before the Copyright Tribunal.

He has published a leading text on intellectual property and is the New Zealand editor of the Intellectual Property Reports (Lexis Nexis) as well as publishing regular updates on intellectual property in the New Zealand Law Review and IP Forum. His website www.andrewbrown.co.nz is widely consulted and contains a substantial volume of case notes and articles on intellectual property.

Andrew was a previous Australasian President of IPSANZ and the Director of the Legal Research Foundation. He is Chair of Experts for the .nz domain name disputes panel and is also on the WIPO UDRP panel.

Trade Mark Revocation and Invalidity Attacks

Successfully acted for Frucor in defending its trade mark for the colour green against revocation and invalidity attacks by Energy Beverages: Energy Beverages v Frucor [2020] NZIPOTM 5 and 6.

Trade Mark Infringement Proceedings

Acted for Frucor and Pepsico in successfully defending trade mark infringement proceedings in the High Court relating to Coca-Cola’s shape trade marks: The Coca-Cola Company v Frucor (2013) 104 IPR 432

Patent Revocation Proceeding

Acted for AVS against AgResearch in High Court proceedings for revocation of a patent for grass endophytes. This resulted in the patent being abandoned by the patentee following the filing of AVS’s evidence

Trade Mark and Passing off Proceedings

Successfully acted for Red Bull NZ Limited in trade mark and passing off proceedings where injunctions were obtained in the Court of Appeal: Red Bull NZ Limited v Drink Red Limited [2016] NZCA 373

IWatch Trade Mark

Successfully obtaining registration of trade mark IWatch following defended opposition proceedings brought by Swatch AG: Apple Inc v Swatch AG (2019) 151 IPR 121

Copyright infringement proceedings

Appearing in the Court of Appeal and Supreme Court, successfully defending appeals. Follow up damages issues: (2019) 146 IPR 525: ESR Group v Burden (NZ) Limited [2017] NZCA 217.

• Co-author of Law of Intellectual Property in New Zealand (Butterworths)
• Editor of New Zealand Intellectual Property Reports
• New Zealand editor of Intellectual Property Reports (Lexis Nexis)
• Intellectual property contributor to the New Zealand Law Review
• Contributor to New Zealand Law Society and Legal Research Foundation seminars