IP consulting
Intellectual property rights
In today’s competitive environment, the protection of intellectual property is becoming increasingly important. Although a brilliant idea or the sum of such ideas can form the cornerstone of a company, the obtaining, protection and enforcement of intellectual property is more important than ever for sustainable entrepreneurial success. We advise you on the prosecution and litigation of all types of intellectual property rights, as well as on the implementation of a company-specific IP strategy that is technologically and economically sensible.
Areas of consulting
We provide you with comprehensive advice relating to all fields of intellectual property rights. If required, we also take on tasks that are usually carried out by an in-house patent and trademark department of the company.
Our consultancy starts with the selection and geographical extension of suitable types of intellectual property rights, tailored to your company and the competitive environment. Regarding the subsequent prosecution and litigation we can draw upon the extensive experience of our law firm gained from a great number of successful national and international cases. We also have particularly extensive experience in the field of opposition and appeal proceedings before the German Patent and Trademark Office (DPMA) and the European Patent Office (EPO).
Patents and utility models
We protect your technical innovations with patents and utility models locally, Europe-wide and international. When drafting patent and utility model applications, we also draw on our extensive expertise gained in numerous opposition and appeal proceedings as well as during litigation, which helps us to maximize the benefits for you and take possible future objections into consideration already during the application proceedings.
Trademarks
We protect the good name of your products. In addition to word marks and figurative marks, we are very experienced in obtaining and protecting trademarks in the areas of sound marks, logos, three-dimensional marks and positional marks. The charm of trademark protection lies not only in the relatively fast registration process, which is often beneficial to the value of the company, but also in the theoretically unlimited term of protection according to the motto “A product is finite, a trademark is eternal”.
Designs
We protect the visual identity of your products. By means of design patents or registered designs, two- and three-dimensional aesthetic designs can be protected. It is therefore possible to protect non-technical innovations against imitators under design protection. Patent and trademark protection together with design protection can provide a comprehensive protection framework for your products.
Inventor Incentive Law
We provide you with comprehensive advice on the implementation of the rules of the Inventor Incentive Law (“Arbeitnehmererfindergesetz, ArbnErfG”) which regulates the legal relationship between employers and employees in the case of inventions and technical improvements by employees. In particular, we support you in the the development and implementation of a system for dealing with employee inventions in your company.
Disputes
We fight imitators and infringers and help you to enforce your intellectual property rights in infringement proceedings. We also advise and represent you in opposition and appeal proceedings before the German and European Patent Offices. In order to protect you against the introduction of counterfeit products into Germany or the EU, we advise on the planning and implementation of border seizures in close cooperation with customs.
Monetisation and licensing
We support you in monetising your technologies and your intellectual property. We provide advice for all contractual issues referring to a possible monetising and licensing of your intellectual property. We particularly advise you on questions relating to licensing, cooperation and development contracts as well as non-disclosure and confidentiality agreements. We also advise you on questions referring to the new law on the protection of trade secrets (Gesetz zum Schutz von Geschäftsgeheimnissen, GeschGehG).
“Freedom-to-operate” and “Due Diligence”
We provide support already during the development phase and help with anticipating and assessing possible risks concerning existing third-party intellectual property rights at an early stage. For this reason, we carry out “freedom-to-operate”-analyses intended to analyse the intellectual property rights environment of a planned product before its market launch. In addition, we carry out “due diligence” investigations intended to analyse and evaluate all intellectual property rights of your company.
Monitoring of intellectual property rights
We continuously monitor the intellectual property rights of your competitors and assess the relevance for your company, your trademarks and your products. It is therefore possible to anticipate competitive activities as early as possible and thus (still) react with relatively little effort. By individualizing established monitoring tools, we can set up a close monitoring for you with less effort than you might think.