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Baldwins Intellectual Property asserts copyright and all other intellectual property rights in this web site, unless otherwise stated. All trade marks which appear on this web page are the property of Baldwins Intellectual Property and are indicated by the appropriate symbol.
Baldwins Intellectual Property also reserves copyright and all other intellectual property rights in all its documents and images appearing on or linked to this web site. Users of this web site may download a single copy of these documents and images for their personal use only.
Any information appearing on or linked to by this web site in which Baldwins Intellectual Property has reserved copyright shall not be reproduced in any form, adapted or transmitted in any form by any process, including electronic form, without Baldwins Intellectual Property's express permission.
All information provided by Baldwins Intellectual Property on this website is provided to the public as a source of general information on intellectual property issues. In legal matters, no publication, whether in written or electronic form, can take the place of professional advice given with full knowledge of the specific circumstances of each case, and proficiency in the laws of the relevant country. The reader should not consider the information on the website to be an invitation for an attorney/solicitor client relationship.
Although every effort has been made to ensure the accuracy of the information on this website, it should not be treated as the basis for formulating business decisions without further professional advice. We emphasise that intellectual property laws vary from country to country, and between states within some countries. The information included on this website will not be relevant or accurate for all countries or states.
Baldwins Intellectual Property does not intend links on the website to be referrals or endorsements of the linked entities. Finally, the use of the internet email for confidential or sensitive information is discouraged.
STANDARD TERMS OF ENGAGEMENT FOR BALDWINS INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY
Introduction
These standard terms of engagement apply to all work carried out by us for you, except to the extent we agree otherwise with you in writing. We reserve the right to change these terms at any time, in which case we will notify you. The current terms of engagement for Baldwins Intellectual Property are available at any time on our website, http://www.baldwins.com/. If you have any questions or concerns about these terms, please contact us.
Market Position
We are one of the leading firms of intellectual property specialists in New Zealand. We act for local and foreign corporate clients, investors, funded start-ups, and research institutes that are serious about their intellectual property and are in a position to exploit it. Our aim is to enhance the businesses of our clients and to maximise their competitive advantage, by assisting them strategically to capture, develop and commercially exploit their intellectual assets. We also have an associated law firm, Baldwins Limited, which conducts all court proceedings and provides assistance with some legal matters.
We employ the best staff available at every level. Our charges reflect the level of professional expertise that we provide and the value that we add to our clients' businesses.
We may not accept instructions if we perceive we may not be able to add significant value to a client's prospective business, or that a prospective client is not in a position to pay charges commensurate with the services we provide. Through this "win-win" philosophy we are better able to provide the highest possible levels of service and advice to our clients.
Partner Responsible for Each Client
A partner is responsible for managing the relationship with each client. The responsible partner may delegate aspects of the work to the most appropriate professional staff member having regard to the level of expertise and technical specialisation required for each matter. From time to time the services of our associated law firm, Baldwins Limited, may be required. The responsible partner for each client will, however, maintain an overview of the portfolio and can be contacted at any time to address any specific queries or concerns.
Team Structures
We structure our professional and support staff into teams, usually on the basis of technological or legal specialisation. Where clients have large or diverse portfolios we may establish a specific client team which will be responsible for your work under the overall supervision of the responsible partner. Our lawyers are employed by our associated law firm, Baldwins Limited.
Fee Disclosure
Before starting any substantive work based on new instructions, we will confirm our understanding of those instructions in writing. We will also endeavour to provide you with an estimate of the charges that are likely to be involved in undertaking the work. The estimate is not a fixed quote or a cap on what we may charge you. We will advise you as soon as reasonably practicable if we need to provide services outside the agreed scope and if requested provide you with an estimate of the likely amount of the further costs.
Professional Fees and Charges
Our fees are primarily calculated in accordance with a regularly updated schedule of charges, details of which can be provided to you upon request, or by hourly rate, or a combination of both. Hourly rates are charged in six minute units and vary according to the expertise of the professionals involved, as well as the nature of the work performed.
Our charges may be adjusted to take account of the skill level required, the complexity of the matter, the urgency of the matter, the importance of the matter to you, the level of value added, the level of risk involved, and other relevant factors. We may also vary our charges on a case by case basis to account for the use of our unique precedent libraries, knowledge management systems, and other intellectual capital.
Disbursements & Tax
Any disbursements such as foreign agents' charges, official fees and consultants' fees will be billed in addition to our professional fees, and will be itemised separately on our invoices. If you instruct our associated law firm Baldwins Limited, that firm will bill you separately.
We will also charge a separate office service fee to cover our costs in respect of photocopying, printing, postage, tolls, faxes and other administrative overheads. This charge is set at 5%, however where actual costs significantly exceed the percentage bases fee, we reserve the right to bill such additional costs.
Any Goods and Services Tax (GST) that is applicable will be passed on to you and will also be itemised separately on our invoices. Unless indicated otherwise, however, our fee estimates are exclusive of GST.
Billing Arrangements and Trading Terms
We will bill you either at the end of each stage or monthly depending upon the type of work involved, unless at our discretion the circumstances of a particular case dictate otherwise. Our bills are payable within 14 days from the date of invoice. Accordingly, any queries must be raised within this period. Direct credit payments are encouraged. We reserve the right to charge interest at 15% per annum on any amounts overdue, and also to initiate legal proceedings for debt recovery if any invoice is overdue by more than 30 days. Should we incur costs in connection with collection of fees or disbursements, these will be recoverable from you, in addition to the interest charges.
Credit Control
Our normal practice is to seek funds in advance to cover anticipated fees and expenses in any new matter and to seek major disbursements in advance in ongoing matters, particularly where these are likely to be of a significant order of magnitude.
When you provide funds in advance, you authorise us to debit against amounts paid by you and to deduct from any funds held on your behalf in our trust account any fees, expenses or disbursements upon our issuing an invoice.
Although you may expect to be reimbursed by a third party for our fees and expenses, and although our invoices may at your request be directed to a third party, nevertheless you remain responsible for payment to us if the third party fails to pay us.
We reserve the right at our sole discretion to undertake independent credit enquiries on any client at any time, and we do this routinely before accepting instructions from any new client. It is also our policy to assign internal credit ratings to all of our clients and these are reviewed on an ongoing basis. We reserve the right to pass credit information to our debt collectors and CPA (see below), and to notify credit agencies of any serious default.
Trust Accounts
Our associated law firm, Baldwins Limited, maintains a trust account which is subject to the protections provided by the Lawyers and Conveyancers Act (Trust Account) Regulations 2008. All funds which we receive from clients (except for funds received in payment of our invoices) are held in that trust account on your behalf. If you provide significant funds in advance, those funds will normally be placed on interest bearing deposit with a bank.
You authorise us to deduct our fees from the funds held in the Baldwins Limited Trust account on your behalf, upon the issuing of an invoice to you for our services.
Modes of Communication
We will endeavour to communicate with you in whatever mode that you prefer. Our preferred mode for routine communication is generally electronic, particularly telephone and e-mail. Accordingly our file may wholly or partly be in electronic form. In communicating via these means, our clients accept, because of the possibility for unauthorised interception, manipulation and non-delivery, that security, confidentiality and data integrity cannot be absolutely guaranteed. For this reason, we will normally endeavour to confirm any substantive opinion or advice in hard copy unless you instruct otherwise. Unless clearly stated otherwise, any opinion or advice provided by email or telephone should also be regarded as expressing the views of the individual professional staff member and subject to final confirmation on letterhead.
We do not accept liability for any loss arising from non receipt of any communication particularly email communications. If it is critical to you that we receive a particular instruction, please either request an acknowledgement of receipt, or send us the communication in two forms, for example by email and by fax.
Renewals
Baldwins Intellectual Property recommends that the world's leading independent annuity service provider, Computer Patent Annuities Global Limited (CPA), manages its clients' patent, trade mark and design renewals. The Partners of Baldwins Intellectual Property have an ownership interest in CPA. Baldwins Intellectual Property has also entered into service agreements with CPA and when it refers clients' cases to CPA will financially benefit from the renewal of those cases by CPA.
CPA is a limited liability company based in Jersey and specialising exclusively in the processing of intellectual property renewals on a global basis. As an indication of the magnitude of the operation, more than 900,000 renewal fees are processed by CPA each year, with two million cases under its management.
Privacy & Confidentiality
Any information you supply to us will be used exclusively by us for the sole purpose for which it is provided. Any information that is not in the public domain will be treated as strictly confidential and where appropriate, will be subject to attorney client privilege. Such information will not be disclosed to any third party unless either authorised by you or required by law. It is fundamental to the professional relationship that any confidential information about, through or from a particular client may not be used by us to the advantage of other clients. Similarly, we may not disclose to you confidential information obtained through or from any other client, even if that information may be to your advantage.
Conflicts of Interest
In the event of our becoming aware of a conflict of interest at any stage, we will immediately alert you to the fact. We will also proceed actively to resolve the conflict as promptly as possible, following the Code of Conduct of the New Zealand Institute of Patent Attorneys, and established principles of law including those set out in the New Zealand Law Society Rules of Conduct and Client Care, professional ethics and good client relationship management.
Disposal of Documents
We reserve the right to dispose of our files at any time beyond seven years following the date of completion of a matter, or earlier if we have converted those files and documents to an electronic format. As a matter of policy, this is defined as the date of the last written communication on our file or our final invoice (save for correspondence or accounts associated solely with renewals), whichever is later. This would not apply to documents explicitly preserved for safekeeping and may not apply to any file or part of a file which has been maintained by us wholly or partly in electronic form. Accordingly, if any documents are required to be retained for more than seven years whether in hard copy or electronic form beyond the completion of the relevant matter, you should advise us of that fact in good time.
Restrictions on Use of Advice
Unless previously agreed by us in writing, no advice, service or information provided by us to any client may be used or relied upon by any third party. We will accept no liability in respect of any third party's use or reliance in contravention of this restriction.
Failure to Comply With Terms
Failure of any client to comply with our terms of engagement may, at our sole discretion, result in temporary suspension of work or permanent termination of the engagement. As an interim measure, it will normally result in a downgrading of our internal credit rating for that client. This will have implications in terms of credit limits and may also result in our declining to accept further instructions.
Terms & Termination
Any work that we undertake on your behalf will be deemed to be conducted on the basis of these terms and conditions, unless they are subsequently modified or waived by another written agreement, to which we are a party.
You may terminate your instructions to us at any time upon giving of reasonable notice. Should this occur, you will continue to be responsible for any costs incurred or accrued before the date of termination, in addition to any fees or charges arising from any consequential work that we may subsequently be required to do including, but not limited to, recovery of outstanding debt. Our fees for services reasonably and properly provided to you prior to the termination of retainer shall be paid by you prior to uplifting your records and we may retain copies of your documents and records.
We reserve the right to stop work on your retainer if our interim accounts are not paid on time or a request for information or action remains unsatisfied.
We may terminate the retainer if there is good cause, such as you not providing us with instructions in a sufficiently timely manner, or your failure to pay our fee on an agreed basis, or your misleading or deceiving us in a material manner, or, except in litigation matters, your adopting against our advice a course of action which we believe is highly imprudent, and may be inconsistent as lawyers.
Right of Lien
In the event of termination, by either party and for any reason, we will maintain a specific as well as a standard right of lien over all of your files. This right is ongoing and entitles us to retain possession of all files and related documents as security, until such time as all charges have been rendered, all accounts have been settled, and all other obligations have been satisfied.
Governing law
Our relationship with you is governed by New Zealand law, and subject to the exclusive jurisdiction of the New Zealand courts.
Welcome Aboard
Subject to these terms and conditions, your acceptance of which is confirmed by your electing to instruct us, we welcome you as a client of the firm. We look forward to working in close partnership with you, to maximise the value of your business by capturing, exploiting and leveraging your intellectual property.
INFORMATION FOR CLIENTS OF BALDWINS LAW LIMITED, OUR ASSOCIATED LAW FIRM
Fees
The basis on which our fees will be charged to you is set out in our letter of engagement. The time for payment of those fees is also set out in that letter.
We may deduct from any funds held on your behalf in our trust account any fees expenses or disbursements for which we have provided an invoice.
Professional Indemnity Insurance
We hold current professional indemnity insurance which meets the minimum standards from time to time specified by the New Zealand Law Society.
The Lawyers Fidelity Fund
The New Zealand Law Society maintains the Lawyers Fidelity Fund to provide compensation to clients of lawyers with protection against pecuniary loss arising from theft by lawyers. The maximum amount payable by the Fidelity Fund by way of compensation to an individual claimant is limited to $100,000. Except in certain circumstances specified in the Lawyers and Conveyancers Act 2006 the Fidelity Fund does not cover a client for loss relating to money that a client is instructed to invest on behalf of a client.
Complaints
If you have any complaint about our service, you may raise it with the partner responsible for your matter.
If you do not wish to raise your complaint with that person you may contact our Chief Executive by letter, email or telephone. Details are as follows:
The Chief Executive
Baldwins Law Limited
Level 14, Baldwins Centre
342 Lambton Quay,
Wellington, New Zealand
Direct Dial: +64 4 471 6886
Fax: +64 4 473 6712
Mobile: +64 21 495 309
Email: grant.crowley@baldwins.com
Web: www.baldwins.com
The New Zealand Law Society also maintains a complaints service to which you may also complain in relation to the provision of service by a lawyer. The address of the New Zealand Law Society is PO Box 5041 Lambton Quay Wellington 6145.
Persons responsible for your work
The names and status of the person or persons who will generally be responsible for the services we provide for you are set out in our letter of engagement.
Client care and service
Whatever legal services your lawyer is providing he or she must:
The obligations lawyers owe to clients are described in the Rules of Conduct and Client Care for Lawyers. Those obligations are subject to other overriding duties, including duties to the courts and to the justice system.
If you have any questions, please visit www.lawyers.org.nz
Limitations on extent of our obligations or liability
Any limitations on the extent of our obligations to you or any limitation or exclusion of liability are set out in our letter of engagement and the standard terms of engagement.
STANDARD Terms of Engagement for Baldwins Law Limited
Introduction
These standard terms of engagement apply to all work carried out by us for you, except to the extent we agree otherwise with you in writing. We reserve the right to change these terms at any time, in which case we will notify you. The current terms of engagement for Baldwins Law Limited are available at any time on our website, www.baldwins.com. If you have any questions or concerns about these terms, please contact us.
Market Position
Baldwins Law Limited is an incorporated law firm which practises in conjunction with its associated patent attorney firm Baldwins Intellectual Property. We are among the intellectual property specialists in New Zealand. We act for local and foreign corporate clients, investors, funded start-ups, and research institutes that are serious about their intellectual property and are in a position to exploit it. Our aim is to enhance the businesses of our clients and to maximise their competitive advantage, by assisting them strategically to capture, develop and commercially exploit their intellectual assets. We also assist out clients in enforcing and defending their rights. To do this, we employ the best staff available at every level. Our charges reflect the level of professional expertise that we provide and the value that we add to our clients' businesses.
We may refuse to accept instructions if they fall outside our normal field of practice, we cannot devote sufficient time to them, they may bring us into a position of conflict with another client, or a prospective client is not in a position to pay charges commensurate with the quality of service we provide.
If we are unable to accept your instructions we will assist you to find another law firm.
Partner Responsible for Each Client
A partner is responsible for managing the relationship with each client. The responsible partner may delegate aspects of the work to the most appropriate professional staff member having regard to the level of expertise and technical specialisation required for each matter. The responsible partner for each client will, however, maintain an overview of the portfolio and can be contacted at any time to address any specific queries or concerns.
Fee Disclosure
Before starting any substantive work based on new instructions, we will confirm our understanding of those instructions in writing. The fees which we will charge or the manner in which they will be arrived at are set out in our engagement letter. We will advise you as soon as reasonably practicable if we need to provide services outside the agreed scope and if requested provide you with an estimate of the likely amount of the further costs.
Professional Fees and Charges
We will charge a fee which is fair and reasonable for the services provided having regard to your interests and our interests. Hourly rates are charged in six minute units and vary according to the expertise of the professionals involved, as well as the nature of the work performed.
Our charges may be adjusted to take account of the skill level required, the complexity of the matter, the urgency of the matter, the importance of the matter to you, the level of value added, the level of risk involved, and other relevant factors. We may also vary our charges on a case by case basis to account for the use of our unique precedent libraries, knowledge management systems, and other intellectual capital.
Disbursements & Tax
Any disbursements such as foreign agents' charges, courier charges, service of documents, official fees travel expenses, barristers' fees and consultants' fees will be billed in addition to our professional fees, and will be itemised separately on our invoices.
We will also charge a separate office service fee to cover our costs in respect of photocopying, printing, postage, tolls, faxes and other administrative overheads. This charge is set at 5%, however where actual costs significantly exceed the percentage bases fee, we reserve the right to bill such additional costs.
Any Goods and Services Tax (GST) that is applicable will be passed on to you and will also be itemised separately on our invoices. Unless indicated otherwise, however, our fee estimates are exclusive of GST.
Billing Arrangements and Trading Terms
We will bill you either at the end of each stage or monthly depending upon the type of work involved, unless at our discretion the circumstances of a particular case dictate otherwise. Our bills are payable within 14 days from the date of invoice. Accordingly, any queries must be raised within this period. Direct credit payments are encouraged. We reserve the right to charge interest at 15% per annum on any amounts overdue, and also to initiate legal proceedings for debt recovery if any invoice is overdue by more than 30 days. Should we incur costs in connection with collection of fees or disbursements, these will be recoverable from you, in addition to the interest charges.
Credit Control
We may seek funds in advance to cover anticipated fees and expenses in any new matter and seek payment of major disbursements in advance in ongoing matters.
When you provide funds in advance, you authorise us to debit against amounts paid by you and to deduct from any funds held on your behalf in our trust account any fees, expenses or disbursements upon our issuing an invoice.
Although you may expect to be reimbursed by a third party for our fees and expenses, and although our invoices may at your request be directed to a third party, nevertheless you remain responsible for payment to us if the third party fails to pay us.
We reserve the right at our sole discretion to undertake independent credit enquiries on any client at any time, and we do this routinely before accepting instructions from any new client. It is also our policy to assign internal credit ratings to all of our clients and these are reviewed on an ongoing basis. We reserve the right to pass credit information to our debt collectors and to notify credit agencies of any serious default.
Trust Accounts
We maintain a trust account for all funds which we receive from clients (except for funds received in payment of our invoices). If we hold significant funds on your behalf we will normally place them on interest bearing deposit with a bank.
Modes of Communication
We will endeavour to communicate with you in whatever mode that you prefer. Our preferred mode for routine communication is generally electronic, particularly telephone and e-mail. Accordingly our file may wholly or partly be in electronic form. In communicating via these means, our clients accept, because of the possibility for unauthorised interception, manipulation and non-delivery, that security, confidentiality and data integrity cannot be absolutely guaranteed. For this reason, we will normally endeavour to confirm any substantive opinion or advice in hard copy unless you instruct otherwise. Unless clearly stated otherwise, any opinion or advice provided by email or telephone should also be regarded as expressing the views of the individual professional staff member and subject to final confirmation on letterhead.
We do not accept liability for any loss arising from non receipt of any communication particularly email communications. If it is critical to you that we receive a particular instruction, please either request an acknowledgement of receipt, or send us the communication in two forms, for example by email and by fax.
Privacy & Confidentiality
Any information you supply to us will be used exclusively by us for the sole purpose for which it is provided. Any information that is not in the public domain will be treated as strictly confidential and where appropriate, will be subject to attorney client privilege. Such information will not be disclosed to any third party unless either authorised by you or required by law. It is fundamental to the professional relationship that any confidential information about, through or from a particular client may not be used by us to the advantage of other clients. Similarly, we may not disclose to you confidential information obtained through or from any other client, even if that information may be to your advantage.
Conflicts of Interest
In the event of our becoming aware of a conflict of interest at any stage, we will immediately alert you to the fact. We will also proceed actively to resolve the conflict as promptly as possible, following established principles of law, the New Zealand Law Society Rules of Conduct and Client Care, professional ethics and good client relationship management.
Disposal of Documents
We reserve the right to dispose of our files at any time beyond seven years following the date of completion of a matter, or earlier if we have converted those files and documents to an electronic format. As a matter of policy, this is defined as the date of the last written communication on our file or our final invoice (save for correspondence or accounts associated solely with renewals), whichever is later. This would not apply to documents explicitly preserved for safekeeping and may not apply to any file or part of a file which has been maintained by us wholly or partly in electronic form. Accordingly, if any documents are required to be retained for more than seven years whether in hard copy or electronic form beyond the completion of the relevant matter, you should advise us of that fact in good time.
Restrictions on Use of Advice
Unless previously agreed by us in writing, no advice, service or information provided by us to any client may be used or relied upon by any third party. We will accept no liability in respect of any third party's use or reliance in contravention of this restriction.
Failure to Comply With Terms
Failure of any client to comply with our terms of engagement may, at our sole discretion, result in temporary suspension of work or permanent termination of the engagement. As an interim measure, it will normally result in a downgrading of our internal credit rating for that client. This will have implications in terms of credit limits and may also result in our declining to accept further instructions.
Terms & Termination
Any work that we undertake on your behalf will be deemed to be conducted on the basis of these terms and conditions, unless they are subsequently modified or waived by another written agreement, to which we are a party.
You may terminate your instructions to us at any time upon giving of reasonable notice. Should this occur, you will continue to be responsible for any costs incurred or accrued before the date of termination, in addition to any fees or charges arising from any consequential work that we may subsequently be required to do including, but not limited to, recovery of outstanding debt. Our fees for services reasonably and properly provided to you prior to the termination of retainer shall be paid by you prior to uplifting your records and we may retain copies of your documents and records.
We reserve the right to stop work on your retainer if our interim accounts are not paid on time or a request for information or action remains unsatisfied.
We may terminate the retainer if there is good cause, such as you not providing us with instructions in a sufficiently timely manner, or your failure to pay our fee on an agreed basis, or your misleading or deceiving us in a material manner, or, except in litigation matters, your adopting against our advice a course of action which we believe is highly imprudent, and may be inconsistent with our fundamental obligations as lawyers.
Right of Lien
In the event of termination, by either party and for any reason, we will maintain a specific as well as a standard right of lien over all of your files. This right is ongoing and entitles us to retain possession of all files and related documents as security, until such time as all charges have been rendered, all accounts have been settled, and all other obligations have been satisfied.
Governing law
Our relationship with you is governed by New Zealand law, and subject to the exclusive jurisdiction of the New Zealand courts.
Welcome Aboard
Subject to these terms and conditions, your acceptance of which is confirmed by your electing to instruct us, we welcome you as a client of Baldwins Law Limited. We look forward to working in close partnership with you.