The move is Murgitroyd’s fourth acquisition inside two years and further strengthens its position as a leading player in the European IP protection sector.

TLIP was founded in Glasgow 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, while the Cambridge office will provide a new location for the expanded Murgitroyd group to service clients located in one of the UK’s leading innovation hubs. All employees will transfer over to Murgitroyd, taking the company’s headcount to more than 470.

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 which protects their ideas, products, processes and systems.

Dr 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.”

Gordon Stark, chief executive of Murgitroyd, added: “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.”