Posted on April 24, 2025
26 April 2025 is World Intellectual Property Day, and this year the theme is IP and music.
IP rights that are automatically acquired, like copyright protection, are clearly important in the music industry and can provide valuable legal rights over melodies, lyrics, sound recordings and the like. As patent attorneys and trademark attorneys, our work on IP rights is typically focused on registered rights such as patents, trade marks and registered designs. For World Intellectual Property Day this year, we will share a series of articles that showcase the work we have done for various clients in the music industry.
In this first article of the series, we celebrate the patent work we’ve done to protect some of the innovations in hi-fi made by our client Bowers & Wilkins, for whom we’ve acted for well over 40 years.
If you want to enjoy pre-recorded music in the way the artist intended, you’ll want to use a decent sound system that delivers the TRUE SOUND of the performance. Bowers & Wilkins has a long history of innovation, with dedicated engineers developing and integrating the highest calibre of performance audio technology into their products. The result allows you to hear music and movies with the striking accuracy and realism of the original recording, with nothing added and nothing taken away. In order to achieve such high quality products, Bowers & Wilkins have been at the forefront of innovation – protecting new and inventive technologies to help achieve the sort of quality that is valued by and trusted not only by audiophiles and music lovers around the world, but also top recording studios such as Abbey Road Studios.
Jim Pearson, partner of Abel + Imray, picks out three of his favourite projects that he’s worked on with Bowers & Wilkins:
Continuum® cone
In the late 1970s, Bowers & Wilkins patented the use of woven aramid fibre material in a speaker cone, for example, using the material sold under the brand Kevlar®. See US Patent No. US 4,076,098. The resulting semi-flexible cone exhibited useful break-up behaviour, less coloration, and greater dispersion of the sound emitted, and was first used in 1976, with the introduction of the DM6 speaker. The striking yellow speaker material was quickly associated by consumers as an indication of quality sound, and was used by Bowers & Wilkins up until 2015, when a replacement technology was introduced following research and development into better materials.
This research gave rise to the invention of Bowers & Wilkins’ Continuum® cone: a proprietary midrange diaphragm made from woven lengths of non-metallic fibres that are coated with a thin layer of metallic material and backed with a precisely deposited layer of damping material. The design of the Continuum® cone is such that it limits abrupt transitions in behaviour that conventional drive units often suffer from, enabling it to deliver pristine midrange sound, meaning that the listener can experience supreme clarity in areas such as vocals and instruments rarely found in competing products.
The metallisation of the woven fibre diaphragm gives the drive units a distinctive silver, almost sparkly, appearance. The word sparkly would not usually be associated with a claim in a granted patent, yet claim 17 of US 10,812,909, as granted, does require that “the woven fibre body is formed of metal-coated non-metallic fibre material, such that, when illuminated with light, the diaphragm appears to have a sparkly appearance”! The Continuum cone loudspeaker diaphragm is protected by many different patent rights, providing Bowers & Wilkins with valuable monopoly rights over the technology worldwide.
The silver sparkly look of the cone is also protected by registered design rights in the UK, EU and US – see for example, the US Design Patent No. US D818,992 or EU Design Registration No. 002673418-0001.
The Continuum® cone was first introduced in 2015 with the launch of the 800 Series Diamond and now features in all of Bowers & Wilkins' main loudspeaker products, including the beautiful-looking 702 S3 Signature:
The Continuum® cone thus represents Bowers & Wilkins' ongoing commitment to TRUE SOUND. It’s not just a material upgrade — it’s a breakthrough in how sound is reproduced, especially in the critical midrange. Voices sound more lifelike, instruments are more defined, and your music feels more emotionally engaging. Music is reproduced exactly as the artist intended.
Pi6 and Pi8 earbuds
Sometimes, the look and appearance of a product will be the most important aspect of the product from an IP perspective. This was true of Bowers & Wilkins’ Pi6 and Pi8 in-ear true wireless earbuds. They were engineered to redefine the listening experience and deliver superior audio quality, bespoke Active Noise Cancellation (ANC), and crystal-clear call performance. Not only do they perform well, the earbuds provide both comfort and elegance, thus combining cutting-edge technology with a sleek, well-thought-out design. Both the Pi6 and Pi8 use similar technologies, with the Pi8 being the premium product of the two, using carbon cones as compared to the bio-cellulous units used in the Pi6. Both look fantastic and won the 2025 IF Design Award. Indeed, sufficiently fantastic-looking that David Beckham was happy to collaborate with Bowers & Wilkins and feature in their marketing of the Pi8s.
"Music plays an important role in David’s busy life, and Bowers & Wilkins is there to ensure that he experiences the high levels of performance and style he is accustomed to, wherever he is and whatever he is doing. David wears Pi8, our flagship True Wireless earbuds. High-resolution sound, adaptive active noise cancellation and crystal-clear voice calls give him the on-the-go performance he requires, while also providing the style and elegance he expects."
Bowers & Wilkins (on David Beckham and the Pi8 earbuds)
The Pi8 is protected via multiple registered design rights around the world, including this UK registered design No. 6316999:
The registered design allows Bowers & Wilkins to stop third parties from using, selling, or making something which looks the same as the registered design in the country or countries in which they hold that registered design.
Tweeter grilles and patterns
Even the smallest of developments can represent an inventive step – one doesn’t need a giant leap to get a patent granted, as this example shows. Bowers & Wilkins designed a new shape of grille for their tweeter drive units that looks different from their previous design and which delivers better transparency when compared to the previous design.
The new tweeter grille pattern is protected both by registered design rights (including GB Design No 6267992) and patent rights (including GB2613969). The UK patent was granted in just 1 year and 15 days, which is relatively fast for proceedings before the UK Intellectual Property Office. The main claim of this UK patent provides Bowers & Wilkins with an absolute monopoly in the UK over the making, selling and importing of a loudspeaker grille having all of the following features:
- The grille has an arrangement of apertures such that when projected onto a notional flat surface, there is a pattern of at least 20 holes.
- The pattern is formed by a repeating tessellating cell comprising at least one hole being a first shape and at least one hole being a second shape, such that the second shape has a convex region that faces a concave region of the first shape.
- And, the tessellating cells tessellate in adjacent straight lines.
Conclusion
Bowers & Wilkins have a commitment to delivering TRUE SOUND and to being at the cutting edge of technology. Their innovations are protected by valuable IP rights ranging from patents for new materials for loudspeaker cones, to registered design rights that protect the stunning looks of their wearable products, such as the ear buds shown above.
You will truly feel the beat of IP if you listen to your favourite music recording on a sound system using Bowers & Wilkins products.
We are a European firm and assist our clients to protect their IP rights in the UK, Europe and worldwide from our offices in the UK and The Netherlands and through our international network of trusted local attorneys.
Other articles in the series for World Intellectual Property Day 2025:
