Corsearch grabs Pointer Brand Protection as sector’s M&A continues
Trademark and brand protector Corsearch has purchased Pointer Brand Protection, a provider of anti-counterfeiting and brand protection services, following its recent buy of Yellow Brand Protection.
In 2018, Corsearch bought Yellow Brand Protection, a provider of online anti-counterfeiting and brand protection services, operating in more than 1,000 online marketplaces and 35 social media platforms.
Commenting on the Pointer Brand Protection purchase, Tobias Hartmann, CEO, Corsearch, said: “We are thrilled to bring the brightest minds in online brand protection together and define the future of this industry. With this strategic acquisition Corsearch becomes the only provider to support the needs of IP and brand professionals throughout the trademark lifecycle.”
Founded in 1949, Corsearch now has over 450 employees working across its 10 global offices. Currently, it’s not known if the Corsearch’s global footprint will increase following the most recent purchase.
Offering its services in multiple countries is a priority, the company said in a statement, in order to match the rise of e-commerce and the issues of counterfeiting, piracy, grey trade, and brand impersonation that go with it.
“A global problem needs global solutions,” said the company, adding that the addition of Pointer helps it build “a brand establishment and protection provider with unmatched coverage.”
Cross-border e-commerce will account for 22% of all e-commerce transactions by the end of 2020, according to research from IPC. And in mid-2019, a collaboration between government agencies worldwide shuttered more than one million copyright-infringing website domains selling counterfeit goods.
“Joining forces with Corsearch means securing the ability to innovate in a way that anticipates the needs of customers while also benefiting from Corsearch’s trusted industry presence,” said Robert Stolk, CEO, Pointer.
The Corsearch statement continued that the “digital environment has become so complex that establishing and protecting brands is too fragmented and time-consuming to be manageable,” but our platform will “provide an entirely new service offering which combines the very best teams, expertise, and technologies from both Pointer, and from previous purchase of Yellow Brand Protection.”
This latest move marks an intensification of merger and acquisition activity within the sector, following US-based IP services provider Clarivate Analytics’s purchase of law data company Darts-ip in late 2019.
Jeff Roy, president of the IP group at Clarivate, said at the time that the acquisition would provide customers with access to a “much wider range of IP solutions and analytics that help solve their most difficult challenges”.
Before that, in September 2019, Clarivate announced that it had acquired SequenceBase. Now amalgamated into Clarivate’s Derwent brand, SequenceBase provides patent sequence information and search technology to the biotech, pharmaceutical and chemical industries.
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