HLK celebrates its 175th anniversary

2025 sees HLK celebrate 175 years of helping the world’s innovators.

Since 1850, the firm has dealt exclusively with intellectual property (IP) protection and has a rich past in working with innovators and entrepreneurs across the globe. Now one of the longest serving IP firms in the UK, our team of experts in IP law have forged a strong international reputation for top quality advice across numerous technologies and industry sectors.

Over the last 175 years, our teams of patent attorneys, trade mark attorneys, and more recently IP solicitors, have experienced great changes, not only in how we and our clients work, but also through the birth of new industry sectors, innovations and brands that have changed the world and become part of everyday life. From our European bases in London, Bristol, Leeds, Glasgow and Munich, and our representative office in Guangzhou, China, we continue to work with some of the most exciting and forward-thinking businesses in the world.

As part of our anniversary celebrations, over the course of 2025 our people will undertake a range of charitable and community activities, including volunteering, fundraising challenges, charitable donations, supporting entrepreneurs in low-income countries and more.

This pledge reflects our commitment to responsible business, in 2025 and beyond.

Graham Lambert, Chief Executive, said:

“I’m privileged to lead this amazing business into its 175th anniversary year. As custodians of a precious legacy, we eagerly anticipate celebrating our history throughout 2025.

Our clients consistently innovate, developing new ideas, inventions, and brands that enhance choice and economic security for all. To celebrate the profound, positive impact of intellectual property on our communities, we are challenging and empowering our people to make a difference in 175 meaningful ways. By contributing our time, talents, and resources, we intend to make it a memorable year of paying it forward.

As well as giving back to society, we are also looking to the future. The next 12 months will be another year of evolution and progression for us all at HLK as we further develop our people and services, ensuring that we continue to anticipate and meet the needs of our clients as we embark on the next phase of our IP journey.”

We will also take a look back over the last 175 years to celebrate the creative genius and inventive drive of the visionaries and entrepreneurs, businesses and brands our people have helped to protect since the firm was founded. Digging through our archives has revealed that we have worked with some clients for over 100 years.

Continuing our longstanding history of working with trailblazers, our clients nowadays include global corporations, start-up and scale-up businesses, and universities. According to research into patent filings over the last three years, the firm acts for ten per cent of the top 50 applicants at the European Patent Office.

History of the company

HLK’s origins can be traced back to 1850, after Dr George Haseltine and Mr William Robert Lake combined their respective patent agencies to form Haseltine, Lake and Co., a partnership of consulting engineers and patent agents, based in London.

Throughout our history, we have proved to be an innovative and proactive business, while committing to long-term relationships with business and innovators in the UK and internationally. We opened a New York office in 1904, which was subsequently sold in 1942, and an office in Munich in 1978, ahead of the European Patent Office accepting its first patent applications later that year.

Haseltine Lake’s merger with Kempner and Partners in 2019 created Haseltine Lake Kempner LLP, or HLK as we are known today. How best to innovate and serve our clients was at the forefront of the merger. By bringing together these two successful practices, each with some of the best IP practitioners within their fields, the combined firm was able to deepen its capability and resources. Since then, HLK has been able to provide our clients with a full suite of legal, patent and trade mark services, a rare combination of expertise under one roof in the UK and Europe.

Looking back at the history of the company, our people have always been committed to progress and played their part in shaping the intellectual property sector.

Both of our co-founders, Haseltine and Lake, were active campaigners for reform to the British patent system in the 1870s, a transformative era for the industry. Lake went on to become a founder member of the British Chartered Institute of Patent Agents when it was established in 1882.

More recently, Partner and Head of the Asia Group at HLK, Daniel Chew, served as President of The Chartered Institute of Patent Attorneys throughout 2023, the first Asian member of the institute to be elected to the role in its 140-year history.