Mark Evans

Representing many of the world's most famous brand owners and personalities, Mark is widely recognized as one of Canada’s leading trademark lawyers. Clients seek him out for his sophisticated expertise in trademark protection, management, and counselling services to help them strategically build and protect the value of their brands.

A seasoned trademark lawyer and highly respected litigator, Mark has significant experience in all aspects of trademark law and the branding life cycle including trademark and trade-dress litigation, brand selection and clearance, trademark prosecution, oppositions and cancellations, and licensing and merchandising.

With more than 30 years of experience and an impressive record of success in numerous high-profile, precedent-setting cases, Mark is known for providing clients with exemplary service and highly-effective advice and solutions. He takes great interest in his clients and invests wholly in helping them realize their maximum brand potential while recognizing and mitigating unforeseen risks.

Mark is at the forefront of the Canadian trademark profession and has been honoured as “Canada’s Outstanding Practitioner of the Year – Trademark” (Managing Intellectual Property, 2020), “Canadian Trademark Litigator of the Year” (Benchmark Canada, 2014 and 2015) and a “Global Thought Leader – Trademarks” (Who’s Who Legal, 2019 and 2015). The World Trade Mark Review 1000 has repeatedly selected Mark as the only Canadian for their gold or silver bands of all areas of trademark law and practice: prosecution and strategy; enforcement and litigation; and anti-counterfeiting. He has also been recognized by senior in-house counsel as a “stand-out lawyer” in Acritas Stars (2018 and 2019) and “hailed as one of the strongest trademarks experts in the market” (Who’s Who Legal 2020). He has also been consistently honoured by a wide range of other leading Canadian and international publications, including the Lexpert/American Lawyer Guide to the Leading 500 Lawyers in Canada, Chambers Global, and Best Lawyers.

Mark has written extensively within the field of intellectual property law, including within international publications such as Trademark World, Managing Intellectual Property, National Law Journal and the World Trademark Law Report. He co-authored the 2017 and 2019 editions of the Canada chapter on trademark litigation for Thomson Reuters' Trade Mark Litigation Global Guide. He has also co-authored the Trademark Litigation: Remedies and Procedures chapter of the IP Benchbook, which is an electronic textbook for the Canadian judiciary, published jointly by the National Judicial Institute and the Law Society of Ontario. Mark was also a joint winner of the Marketing Research and Intelligence Association’s “Best Multi-Stakeholder Research Initiative” for consumer survey research conducted in the trade dress trial victory in Diageo Canada v Heaven Hill Distilleries et al, 2017 FC 571.

Mark is a frequent panelist on intellectual property subjects and has spoken to various organizations, including the International Trademark Association, the Intellectual Property Institute of Canada, the Canadian Corporate Counsel Association, the American Bar Association, the Law Society of Ontario, the New York State Bar Association, the Michigan State Bar Association, the Chicago Bar Association, the Intellectual Property Law Association of Chicago and the Oklahoma State Bar Association. Mark also taught trademark law at Osgoode Hall Law School for several years, and has lectured at the Oxford Intellectual Property Research Centre and the McGill/IPIC Intensive Copyright course.

During his academic career, Mark was awarded the prize for the highest grade in Intellectual Property Law in the Bar Admission course for Ontario.