ID

Brand Protection

ID offers a wide protection of Brand Protection and Intellectual Property services and has deep knowledge and long experience in dealing with Copyright and Trade Mark Law issues. We carry out such work for leading national broadcasting companies, the film and music industries, top sporting bodies as well as software writers.

We provide services for both Civil Litigation and Criminal Prosecution through well-established links with specialist Intellectual Property (IP) solicitors, enforcement agencies and specialist prosecutors.

Brand Protection is a core part of our business and our expert staff have numerous cases in process at any time. We are happy to demonstrate our systems to potential clients.

Among the Brand Protection services ID offers are:

• Ensuring manufacture quality control standards by examining and auditing factories before they are licensed to produce merchandise and check ethical employment issues.
• Monitor suspect markets and retail outlets and arrange strategies with enforcement agencies - Police, Trading Standards and Prosecutors - to deal with breaches of Trade Mark law.
• Provide expert witness statements for clients to prove how an item infringes the law.
• Liaise with HM Customs and Revenue to ensure that all relevant Trade Marks are registered with its IPR scheme and then deal with any Inquiries relating to seizures under the scheme.
• Undertake reverse surveillance to source the manufacture or importation of products which infringe the law; we can also create financial profiles to support civil actions.
• Create Internet searches which automatically trawl and detect the use of logos to check the authenticity of merchandise and vendors and carry out online test purchases.

Surveillance

ID has professional surveillance teams operating throughout the UK based out of London, Manchester, Liverpool, Glasgow and Belfast. Most of our experts have been responsible for training public sector surveillance teams or have advanced technical expertise in surveillance.

We undertake a large amount of surveillance work for the insurance industry, as well as public sector and corporate HR departments. All public sector surveillance is required to comply with the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act (RIPA) or the Regulation of Investigatory Powers (Scotland) Act (RIP(S)A). ID can also assist public departments not familiar with (RIPA) or (RIP(S)A) procedure to develop compliant strategies.

All the work we undertake for private sector clients complies with the spirit of RIPA or RIP(S)A; our long experience in this field has shown that this is the best working method because it means that any reports can later be handed over to law enforcement authorities, if a client wishes.

When a customer issues a surveillance brief ID carries out a wide range of checks from information in the public domain; draws up a profile of the subject; and creates a detailed strategy to implement the surveillance. Clients are kept updated with progress at all times and presented with a photographic report and video evidence once the work is complete.

For reasons of integrity ID only takes surveillance instructions from corporate bodies or solicitors.

Corporate Services

ID’s corporate services are divided into the following sections:

• Conventional Inquiries, observations or surveillance which are used to secure statements or acquire evidence.
• Computer Forensic Services.
• Asset Tracing and Protection Services.
• The Special Operations Department which devises bespoke responses when conventional investigations are inappropriate. The department creates a unique strategy to deliver results using a variety of techniques which can include physical or technical surveillance and undercover placement.

The ID Corporate Team is staffed by hand-picked personnel who have a proven track record of delivering special operations at the highest level in the police and military services around the world. ID successfully harnesses these uniquely-experienced and highly-skilled staff to solve complex corporate problems.

Our teams of investigators bring their long experience and deep knowledge to our conventional Inquiries having worked on complex cases which include international fraud and high-profile murder cases.

ID also operates a bespoke database for large-scale inquiries, which have included such sensitive cases as the pre-trial preparation for the Lockerbie terrorist trial. This database allows information from a wide variety of disparate sources to be linked and cross-checked.

We have a proven track of creating strategies to solve corporate issues by identifying areas of vulnerability and attacking and neutralising problems. Once a strategy is agreed with a client, we form a Strategy Group, made up of our experts and representatives of the client. Every operation is monitored by this group and no changes are made without agreement from all sides.

Once a desired outcome is delivered, ID also provides advice on adjustments to systems and procedures to prevent a problem from recurring. In almost all cases ID also brings “added value” by identifying issues of which the client was unaware. These issues often cause unnecessary expenditure or losses or can leave clients vulnerable from bad working practices. This “added value” often generates savings that cover the cost of implementing the whole of the strategy.