Expanding Glasgow IP business Murgitroyd seals fourth takeover in under two years

Murgitroyd, the Glasgow-headquartered intellectual property firm, has sealed its fourth acquisition inside two years as it strengthens its international presence.

The firm has acquired intellectual property (IP) business TLIP, which was founded in 2014 and employs 14 people - nine patent attorneys and five support staff - based at its offices in Cambridge, Leeds and Dublin. TLIP employees based in Leeds and Dublin will join their new colleagues in Murgitroyd’s existing offices in these cities. The Cambridge office will provide a new location for the expanded Murgitroyd group to service clients located in one of the UK’s top innovation hubs.

The deal sees all employees transfer over to the Scottish group, taking its headcount to more than 470. Financial details surrounding the acquisition have not been disclosed. Murgitroyd said TLIP has a “well-established reputation” for working with high growth companies to protect their innovation through the delivery of a “commercially focused IP strategy”.

Gordon Stark, chief executive of Murgitroyd, said: “We are passionate about helping clients to protect and realise value from their intellectual property and the acquisition of TLIP further enhances our ability to deliver this. TLIP is a business with strong links within the growing UK-based technology and biotechnology sectors which, as we saw during the pandemic, are at the cutting edge of innovation. I am confident that by combining TLIP’s specialist knowledge and expertise with Murgitroyd’s broader offering, we will deliver even greater strategic value to our clients.”

Alex Turnbull, managing director of TLIP, said: “TLIP has grown consistently over recent years and we have reached the point where in order to continue to develop our client offering, scale becomes increasingly important. Murgitroyd’s client-focused approach, coupled with its breadth of capacity and capability, means that we can offer our clients an even more comprehensive service that puts IP protection at the heart of their business strategies.

“We have an expert team of attorneys whose development will undoubtedly be enhanced by working with some of the world’s most innovative organisations - from large, multinational tech and life sciences businesses to emerging, fast-on-their-feet start-ups and scale-ups at the leading edge of innovation. I look forward to this next chapter in the development of TLIP with great optimism.”

Murgitroyd acquired Glasgow-based Creation IP, a specialist in start-up, spin-out and scale-up businesses, in April 2022; UDL Intellectual Property, the UK-based IP practice, in November, 2021; and Hanna Moore + Curley, one of Ireland’s top patent and trade mark attorney firms, in September 2021.

April’s purchase of Creation IP was hailed as the latest step in Murgitroyd’s growth and expansion strategy. Creation IP’s client list includes a broad spectrum of “innovative companies”, ranging from Scottish-based spin-outs and start-up businesses through to small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) and US-based corporates.

Paul Lynch, director of TLIP; Gordon Stark, CEO of Murgitroyd; and Dr Alex Turnbull, managing director of TLIP. Picture: Gerard Binks

Bosses at Murgitroyd said Creation IP’s clients were highly complementary to Murgitroyd’s client base, with the latter’s broader scope of IP services and deeper attorney capacity and capability creating “significant post-deal growth potential”.

Murgitroyd had been listed on the London stock market for many years before being taken private.