Comprehensive Representation in
Industrial Property Protection
Our office typically provides long-term, comprehensive representation of clients both in establishing and asserting property rights. For many of our clients we have been working for decades.
Our Attorneys’ work covers all aspects of advice and representation with the aim of attaining, securing and asserting rights to inventions, know-how, brand names, domain names, company names and design developments. The area of activity is very wide.
Particular importance is attached to the need of our advice not only to give answer whether to make an application and what to apply for. On the contrary, the provision of protection appropriate to the type and (expected) economic significance of the invention/innovation is always emphasised.
For example, it may be advisable to clarify whether, in a particular case, treatment of an invention as know-how may be preferable to applying for a property right.
Part of our Attorneys’ work is representation or joint representation before German and foreign authorities and courts. For asserting property rights against infringing parties in Germany, these are the Patent-Streitkammer (Court for Patent Causes), the Geschmacksmuster-Streitkammer (Court for Design Causes), the Kammer für Markensachen (Court for Trademark Causes) and the Wettbewerbskammer (Competition Division) at the Landgericht (Regional Courts), the Oberlandesgericht (Higher Regional Courts) and the Bundesgerichtshof (Federal Supreme Court). In Europe and elsewhere, particularly in the USA, China and Japan, representations before authorities and infringement courts are usually carried out in cooperation with local colleagues with whom we have successfully worked over a long period, typically decades.
A major element of our work is balancing different interests and possible actions through contractual agreements such as licences, delimitation agreements, declarations of priority, cooperation agreements and the like.