CT Corsearch Acquires Edital

NEW YORK and BRUSSELS, July 22 /PRNewswire/ -- CT Corsearch, the premier provider of clearance and protection solutions for trademark and brand professionals, today announced it's acquired Edital, the Questel trademark branch. This acquisition combines two industry-leading companies to create best-in-class solutions for managing a brand lifecycle globally—from creation to watching to protecting, maintaining and renewing a brand. Terms of the acquisition were not disclosed.

As business has become increasingly global, the need for multinational corporations to protect their brands around the world has also increased. This deal enables both companies to better serve the needs of multinational companies protecting their brands globally.

CT Corsearch is part of Wolters Kluwer Corporate Legal Services, which operates under the CT brand.

"This acquisition represents an excellent opportunity to expand our industry-leading brand management business into Europe and beyond," said Richard Flynn, president & CEO of Wolters Kluwer Corporate Legal Services. "There is strong potential to leverage the full power of Wolters Kluwer's global presence to rapidly grow our business internationally."

Combining CT Corsearch and Edital—both of whom have been recognized industry-wide for superior service and quality—enables the newly combined company to offer:

• The most trademark databases in the industry, including North America, Europe, Asia and exclusive regional coverage of Latin America.
• Industry-leading technology platforms. Corsearch® Advantage™ is a revolutionary platform for trademark clearance and protection that provides electronic workflow tools to help trademark professionals effectively manage their trademark screening, search review, and watching. Edital leads the European market with Web-enabled workflow solutions, including the Edital.com platform and its advanced intelligent query technology, strong global search and watch capabilities and Edital's docketing solution, Worldsuite.
• Greater local presence in the U.S. and Europe. The combined company will have nine offices in the U.S., including its U.S. operational headquarters in New York, along with European operational headquarters in Brussels and offices in Paris.
• Expanded global capabilities, including integration of their respective industry-leading search solutions for North America, Europe and worldwide, enhanced trademark watching solutions, global domain registration and management services, and online brand monitoring services.

"Edital is highly respected in the European trademark marketplace. We're excited about the synergies this brings to the CT Corsearch family," said Joshua Braunstein, general manager of CT Corsearch. "We can now offer even more robust global capabilities and a stronger local presence to better meet the needs of our customers worldwide."

"The patent industry continues to be one of our greatest strengths. The Edital sale will give us the means to accelerate an ambitious build-up strategy around patents," said Charles Besson, Questel's CEO. "We'll continue to broaden the type of patent-related information we supply to the intellectual property market. We're excited to see Edital continue to make its mark in the trademark industry, now alongside—and as part of—another industry leader, CT Corsearch."

About CT Corsearch

CT Corsearch provides high-quality, intuitive tools and expertise that trademark professionals need to effectively manage the trademark screening, search review and watching processes. Its highly trained researchers and customer-designed tools enable the company to offer the premier solutions in the industry. For more information, please visit www.ctcorsearch.com.

CT Corsearch is part of Wolters Kluwer Corporate Legal Services, a business of Wolters Kluwer—a market-leading global information services company with annual revenues (2009) of euro 3.4 billion ($4.8 billion) and approximately 19,300 people worldwide. Visit www.wolterskluwer.com.

About Questel

Questel has been focusing on Intellectual Property for more than 30 years. We provide a suite of leading-edge patent, trademark and industrial design services to researchers, lawyers, scientists, and competitive intelligence professionals. Known for the largest databases collections in the world, we also offer a wide array of tools for searching, watching, archiving and sharing information, as well as analyzing and managing IP portfolios.

Since 2007, Questel has been supported by the leading European mid-cap Private Equity investor, Syntegra Capital.

SOURCE CT Corsearch