Welcome to Managing Intellectual Property IP STARS, the leading specialist guide to IP law firms and practitioners worldwide. Managing IP has been researching and ranking firms since 1996. The guide has expanded over the years, with more jurisdictions and practice areas now covered.
IP STARS is not a directory of all firms offering IP services and therefore many firms and individuals, including those that participated in the research, are not ranked.
There is no cost or fee to pay to participate in our research. Click here to learn how to participate and why it is important to do so each year. Below you will find an overview of IP STARS and other important information you need to know.
Our research for IP STARS covers contentious and non-contentious IP work. It is carried out by an experienced team of research analysts and journalists in our offices in Hong Kong, London and New York.
Each year our research analysts obtain information from thousands of firms, IP practitioners and their clients through interviews, email and online surveys. Before compiling the rankings, our research analysts also conducted their own independent research, including an analysis of publicly available information (such as court or IP office data) and existing data we hold on firms.
The aspects assessed for the firm rankings include expertise, workload, market reputation/track record, outcomes achieved for clients, and unique strengths in a given practice area. Judgements about which firms to include in the rankings, and which tier and practice area they should be in, take account of all this information.
The research is conducted rigorously and impartially. No firm or individual can pay to be ranked or to influence the results. There is no fee to pay to participate in our research.
You can find more information about our process on our methodology page. Guidance and answers to common questions can be found on our FAQs page
Please note that our research and results publication dates below are subject to change each year.
We will publish an announcement on this website when research results are available.
- August: We will send out an email with details about our research for the next edition
- September 1: We start accepting firm submissions, conducting independent research and scheduling market interviews
- October 31: Firm questionnaire and client referees submission deadline*
- October - December: Research interviews
- December - March: Client referee feedback and practitioner survey starts**
- May: Rising Stars survey***
- July: End of the research for the current year's edition
* Any deadline that falls on a Saturday or Sunday is automatically extended to Monday.
** We can contact referees at any time between December and March, and we'll first process documents submitted on time, i.e. between September 1 and October 31. Our emails are sent from our general research email address (see here) or the email address of one of our editors. Our first practitioner survey is for the senior IP practitioners, especially the IP Stars. Any IP partner can complete our IP Practitioner Survey.
***We launch our Rising Stars survey after we have closed the senior IP practitioner survey. Any IP practitioner who can meet the criteria for the Rising Stars list can participate in the survey.
Firms are ranked alphabetically in tiers or as highly recommended or recommended. The total number of firms listed varies from jurisdiction to jurisdiction. The number of jurisdictions, practice areas, firms or individuals featured in IP STARS is subject to change each year.
For most jurisdictions, the rankings are split into prosecution and contentious work, whereas in smaller jurisdictions we rank firms for their IP practice as a whole. We also publish special national rankings for the United States and cover all 50 states plus the District of Columbia.
To contextualise the rankings, we provide editorial commentary on many ranked firms. The editorials highlight pertinent information about the firms, including key practitioners, available market feedback and recent developments.
The stars
Alongside our firm rankings we also recognise the work of outstanding individuals. We refer to them as stars. There are three distinct categories: IP Star, Rising Star and Corporate IP Star. The IP STARS and Rising Stars lists are for individuals in private practice while the Corporate IP STARS list is for in-house practitioners. We also publish a special IP Star list titled Top 250 Women in IP . Information about how we select the stars can be found on our methodology page.
IP STARS is available in print and online. The firm rankings are first published in the Managing Intellectual Property magazine. Thereafter we publish three handbooks: the US edition, the Trade Mark & Copyright (global edition) and Patent (global edition). The handbook includes the rankings, our independent editorials on ranked firms and the IP STARS.
IP STARS Handbooks are widely distributed. You can find copies at Managing IP events or any major industry events we attend such as the INTA Annual Meeting. The handbooks are also offered to those who participate in our research.
IP STARS is part of Legal Benchmarking Group
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