Ruth Hoy

Ruth Hoy

Partner
About

Ruth has been working in intellectual property litigation for 25 years. Her particular specialism is litigation involving trade marks and passing off, copyright (including piracy) and related rights, design rights, database rights, breach of confidence and internet domain name and Company Name Tribunal disputes. She also advises clients in contentious matters before the trade mark registries. 

During her career, she has been involved in some ground breaking litigation, both in the UK and in Europe. She has experience of urgent relief applications (including search orders), and has successfully obtained blocking injunctions for a number of her rightsowner clients against the UK broadband providers to get them to block access to infringing content. 

Ruth leads the UK IP practice. She is ranked/featured in the legal directories including Legal 500, Chambers & Partners, and the WTR 1000. One recent quote described Ruth "who captains the UK IP practice" as having "an instinctive feel for the scale of the problems her clients face, is sensitive to the budgets they have for tackling them and comes up with appropriate, commercially driven solutions”. Ruth is "legally knowledgeable and commercially astute", "experienced in trade mark and commercial strategy", and is "very calm and collected”. Ruth is also ranked by Managing Intellectual Property as an "IP Star". Ruth also "manages global [trade mark] portfolios with panache".  

 
Professional QualificationsSolicitor of the Senior Courts of England and Wales

EXPERIENCE

Key experience
  • Acting for an international sporting body to obtain the first ever interim injunction in Scotland to prevent internet streaming of live sports events
  • Advising on anti-piracy litigation issues for the Premier League, including taking High Court proceedings to establish the legality of the importation and sale of foreign broadcaster smartcards in the UK and their use in pubs and clubs
  • Acting in High Court litigation with a former franchisee of a mobile telecoms business; including termination of brand licence and associated issues
  • Acting for an internationally famous musician/writer in a claim against his publishing company regarding royalty
  • Acting in trademark and domain name enforcement matters for a variety of clients
  • Acting in High Court defamation proceedings brought by an individual against a major High Street bank
  • Advising in relation to privacy issues; assisting a client which had been the subject of undercover filming and how best to ensure that the programme which was aired was a fair and accurate assessment of events
  • Advising major broadcasters on contractual, copyright and licensing issues
  • Acting for major Hollywood film studios on international film distribution deal disputes
  • Advising on reversionary copyright and remake rights for film companies
Education
  • Leeds University, First Class Honours in Law
  • Birmingham University, LLM in Commercial Law
  • Nottingham Law School, LPC with distinction

Awards

  • Commended in the WTR 1000: The World's Leading Trademark Professionals 2017

Publications

Ruth is a contributor to Sweet & Maxwell's Practical Intellectual Property and has written articles, including for World Copyright Law Report. She has been quoted in the Press Gazette and the Guardian Media Law Supplements, and interviewed on the radio.

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