Charles Sweeney

Corporate and commercial

• Advising in relation to private equity transactions, financial instruments and derivative transactions for a state investment corporation.
• Providing legal advice in relation to the acquisition of substantial shareholding in an ASX listed company, and the takeover of an ASX listed company for a major hotel and resort chain.
• Advising a substantial shareholder of a large agribusiness on the $450 million sale of the business to a UK private equity firm.
• Providing ongoing corporate advisory, intellectual property, competition and consumer, and compliance advice to a major insurance company.
• Developing and implementing a competition law compliance program for a major retail group.

Intellectual property / Information technology

• Creating patent and other IP protection strategies for clients in IT and Biotech fields (liaising with other professionals such as Patent Attorneys where appropriate).
• Acting for numerous corporate and commercial clients (small and large) in applying for trade mark registrations and successfully conducting and defending trade mark opposition and infringement proceedings, including preparing submissions on adverse reports to IP Australia.
• Drafting licence agreements for clients from the perspective of both the licensee and licensor and relating to matters as diverse as plant breeders’ rights, software, business processes, trademarks and brands and copyright.
• Drafting distribution agreements for products invented in Australia and manufactured overseas.
• Drafting collaboration agreements with Government funded research bodies and training providers.
• Preparing intellectual property agreements, including licences to use, manufacture, develop and market, confidentiality agreements and agreements dealing with patent rights.
• Advising on ownership of IP developed by employees in the course of their work.
• Preparing and negotiating agreements for the development of iPhone applications.
• Preparing and negotiating agreements for outsourcing of IT services including advice on the legal implications of cloud computing.
• Conducting domain name dispute resolutions in Australia and overseas jurisdictions.
• Advising in relation to service level agreements, disaster recovery service agreements and software development and licence agreements.
• Advising in relation to master licence agreements for enterprise software between an Australian licensor and offshore licensees.
• Advising in relation to shrink-wrap and click-wrap licence agreements.
• Successfully conducting and defending trademark opposition and infringement proceedings.
• Advising in relation to a joint venture agreement for the development of power inverter technologies.