The partners are Óscar García, Patricia Koch (opposite, right and left), Jesús Mancha and Olof Fickert (below, left and right). They will cover patent and trade mark prosecution and litigation.
García was previously the head of trade marks at Herrero, Koch the head of the litigation department and Fickert the foreign clients patent department.
The partners have been followed by eight lawyers and attorneys, including Juan Pedro Vallejo, who headed Herrero's Latin America practice, and Miguel Aznar, who has been central to the changes in pharmaceutical cases recently in Spain. Both are now partners at Balder IP.
Herrero is a large Spanish firm with 10 offices across the country. It was ranked in the top tier by Managing IP for patent and trade mark prosecution, and tier 2 for trade mark contentious work.
Unusually among Spanish firms, Balder has been set up on the basis that any associates made into partner will become equity partners on a par with the founders. The founders wanted to "create the firm that, had it existed, we would have liked to join".
