Baker & McKenzie has been appointed by Unilever to manage the consumer goods giant's global trademark portfolio.

The firm beat more than 20 rival firms in a beauty parade to land the outsourcing deal, which comes into effect in January next year.

The agreement, signed last week, is thought to mark the first time a company has outsourced its trademark management to a law firm on such a large scale and will see Bakers manage Unilever's portfolio on matters such as filing, searches and renewals.

Bakers will take on a number of Unilever's in-house trademark staff as result of the move.

Unilever has some 54 in-house staff working on trademark issues and 30 positions will be affected by the outsourcing, although it is currently unclear how many will be joining Bakers. Unilever's topend trademark work will largely stay in-house.

Unilever is understood to be the largest trademark owner in the world with more than 160,000 registrations including Ben & Jerry's ice cream, Domestos, Dove, Flora, Marmite and Sure deodorant.

The firm has acted for Unilever in the past but this agreement is its most significant instruction from the client and marks the first time Unilever has tried to centralise its external trade-mark advisers.

Paul Rawlinson, head of Bakers' global IP group, said: "We have invested very significantly in IP infrastructure and have positioned ourselves as IP counsel to multi-national companies. To offer the right support service to the likes of Unilever profitably, you have to have invested."

Unilever said that the agreement with Bakers was part of the company's general strategy of outsourcing support services.

Katrina Burchell, Unilever's general trademark counsel, commented: "This is part of a wider initiative to focus our resources on our core competencies and make trademarks part of someone else's front office. It was not about reducing costs as much as improving the service."