The final session of the day, "Who handles your trade mark?", was chaired by Keltie Sims. This addressed the sometimes controversial issue of whether businesses with big trade mark portfolios should handle the work themselves or outsource it.

Right: trade mark administration can be bureaucratic and labour-intensive ...

Issues of cost-effectiveness, administrative convenience, sensitivity to deadlines and so forth were investigated in this session, contrasting the experiences of two of Europe's largest and most successful trade mark owners.

Unilever's Katrina Burchell kicked off by explaining the internal structure of brand development, brand building and sectoral lawyers, as well as the nature of the company's outsourcing deal with international law firm Baker & McKenzie. Integrating legal requirements is important: for example, where there is a trade mark opposition there is also an infringement action, so they should be dealt with by the same squad. Katrina herself plays many roles within the business, in the course of which she likes to think of herself as wearing many shoes.

The division of labour between work done in-house and that done 'outside the box' is complex, reflecting the broad range of activities in Unilever is engaged. Some things are difficult to outsource (eg lobbying, risk analysis, budget creation and financial reporting), while others are relatively easy to do so. The fact of outsourcing actually affects the atmosphere of the workplace: people work on their core tasks and don't have to concerning themselves with those that are done outside. In summary, the outsourcing operation has so far been a success -- though it involved both careful planning and hard work.

Jean-Pierre Maeder (Nestlé) took over. He explained that his was a brand-driven business, with were more than 100 companies in the group, with vast investments and commercial activities. Following the corporate brand review, Jean-Pierre described the highly centralised nature of the IP administration: IP rights are held by a separate company and licensed for use when and as necessary. When a business is acquired, the IP rights are acquired separately.

A system of regional and local IP advisers operates in respect of the company's brands, which are hedged as far as possible with protection through registered rights and domain name registrations (figures given for NesCafé were impressively high). An important part of the company's strategy is to emphasise the importance of its brands even to its own employees.

In-house management of the IP portfolio is preferred to outsourcing, which is seem as costly, time-consuming and as requiring the construction and maintenance of an effective interface. Keeping things in-house should be swifter, more amenable to control and more flexible.

Next came Marius Knijff (Knijff & Partners), speaking in the 'graveyard' slot. Asked to speak for 5 minutes, Marius promised to speak for six (in the event, he spoke for 12), giving a personal account of his experiences as an out-house private practitioner to whom responsibility for trade mark services had been given by Mars. Modestly refusing to advise as to whether outsourcing works out expensive, he emphasised how handy it is for small companies and for businesses that have a slim basic establishment.

Where a company does not yet have enough work to warrant creating an in-house facility, outsourcing is the most realistic option. Even then, the set-up requires the creation of overcapacity so as to cover events such as holidays, sickness and maternity leave. With fewer than 2,000 trade marks records to administer, the economic case in favour of outsourcing is persuasive.