NEW YORK, Sept. 9, 2013 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Wolters Kluwer Corporate Legal Services (CLS), a leading provider of legal information services and solutions, today announced it has acquired CitizenHawk, Inc., a premier provider of SaaS solutions and services specializing in online brand protection and global domain recovery. This acquisition further expands CLS's global portfolio of trademark and brand clearance and protection solutions under the Corsearch brand, extending Corsearch's capabilities into a rapidly growing market. CitizenHawk, based in Aliso Viejo, Calif., serves more than 250 blue-chip brands with approximately one in four companies on Internet Retailer's Top 500 list as clients. Terms of the acquisition were not disclosed.
Web presence is playing an increasingly important role in maximizing businesses' global reach. As a result, managing and protecting a company's brand is more complex today than ever before. Brands around the world are at risk of online brand misuse or trademark infringement - ranging from cybersquatting and logo abuse to unauthorized product distribution. The CitizenHawk acquisition allows Corsearch to offer its customers a greater range of online brand protection services from continuous monitoring of the Internet for all typo and cybersquatting to identifying and taking action on unauthorized and fraudulent domains to monitoring ecommerce, social media and other channels for brand abuse.
"There is a clear market convergence between online brand protection and traditional trademark and brand protection. Trademark professionals are increasingly expanding their scope to address online brand infringement issues, making online brand protection a natural space for us to expand," said Josh Braunstein, general manager, Corsearch. "This acquisition positions Corsearch well to address customers' growing challenges."
CitizenHawk's combination of deep industry expertise coupled with advanced software and monitoring technology allows its customers to not only identify, but also act to prevent and remediate brand challenges. CitizenHawk has sophisticated technology that identifies infringement on active trademarks, and also boasts a patented business process for its domain recovery process. Following the completion of the acquisition, CitizenHawk's technology will integrate into Corsearch's service offerings to create a single solution for trademark professionals.
"The need for brand protection and reputation management is rapidly increasing and is highly correlated with e-commerce and online advertising. Combining our online brand protection solutions with Corsearch's leading trademark watching and screening services will allow both companies to bring greater value to customers by offering a broad range of online and traditional brand protection services from one company," said Dave Duckwitz, VP, CitizenHawk.
About Wolters Kluwer Corporate Legal Services
Wolters Kluwer Corporate Legal Services (CLS) operates a distinctive, global portfolio of market-leading legal and compliance services companies, including CT Corporation, NRAI, BizFilings, CT Lien Solutions, Corsearch, and TyMetrix. It serves 70% of the Fortune 500, 90% of the AmLaw 100, 80% of the 100 largest U.S. banks and hundreds of thousands of small business owners. As pioneers of the legal compliance services space, CLS is the partner of choice for legal compliance, due diligence, brand and performance management solutions. A Wolters Kluwer business, CLS operates a network of over 1,500 professionals in 54 offices around the world.
Wolters Kluwer ( www.wolterskluwer.com ) is a market-leading global information services company. Wolters Kluwer is headquartered in Alphen aan den Rijn, the Netherlands. Its shares are quoted on Euronext Amsterdam (WKL) and are included in the AEX and Euronext 100 indices.
| Media |
| Stacy Nobles |
| Director of Communications |
| Wolters Kluwer Corporate Legal Services |
| +1 617.531.5892 |
| stacy.nobles@wolterskluwer.com |
| Investors/Analysts |
| Meg Geldens |
| Vice President, Investor Relations |
| Wolters Kluwer |
| +31 (0) 172 641 407 |
| ir@wolterskluwer.com |
PDF version of Press Release: http://hugin.info/130682/R/1728114/577056.pdf
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