Powell Gilbert is a firm of senior IP Lawyers that spun out of Bristows in 2007. The firm has one office in London, with 24 IP lawyers that do work for clients such as Human Genome Sciences, Nokia, Google, HTC and Procter & Gamble.

"Powell Gilbert is good; it should arguably be top tier, comments one partner.

The firm has been engaged in the so-called smartphone wars this year, acting for a number of the big players. It represented Nokia in an infringement action brought by Apple, and is also acting for HTC Europe against the same company with both cases subject to parallel proceedings across Europe.

A standout trade mark case was acting for Microsoft against BSkyB after the latter sought an injunction and damages for an alleged infringement to do with the name Skydrive for Microsoft's proposed cloud-computing service. This is likely to go to trial in late 2012. In recruitment terms, Powell Gilbert is also actively growing its team, taking on six new associates this year... peers are still keen on the firm's capabilities. "Powell Gilbert has been very successful. They have good partners," says one.