Practice Areas

Our scientific and technical practice areas

Our main scientific areas are chemistry, biochemistry, biotechnology, medicine, pharmaceuticals, genetics and related areas. General examples thereof are:

Engineering

  • Environmental technology
  • Medical engineering
  • Mobile radio
  • Printing machines
  • Warehouse logistics
  • Flat conductors, SMD-Jumpers
  • Raw and building materials

Medicine

  • Active agents for the preparation of drugs
  • Radiotracer
  • Tissue-Engineering
  • Medical Devices
  • Dental Braces, Distractors
  • Transplants

Science

  • Methods for the isolation of chemical compounds
  • Amino acid sequences und nucleic acid sequences
  • Microorganisms to decompose toxins
  • Immunoassays
  • Biosensors

Our main areas of work

Patent Law

The aim is to optimally protect the idea, if possible all over the world.

Basic principles

Patents are granted for technical inventions, which are new, inventive and commercially applicable. A patent grants a monopoly right for a period of time up to a maximum of 20 years after the filing date.

A patent gives you the right to prohibit third parties the use of the invention for commercial purposes. This has some exceptions, for example, the “Research Exemption”.

Procedure

After preparation of the application documents, including general claims and drawings, these documents are sent to the Patent Office. The “filing date” is the day the patent application arrives at the Patent Office.

If you file the application and at the same time request the examination of the patent, the Patent Office examines the (relevant) prior art within approximately the next nine months – that is, older patent specifications and all other written and oral disclosures, then the Patent Office issues a first office action based on this state of the art.

After reception of the first office action the applicant can decide in which way he wants to proceed with his patent application. After a positive communication he can, for example, file an international registration, which claims the filing date of the first patent application; that is, to claim the priority. However, even if the first office action of the examining division is negative, it is possible to get the patent granted, for example, through discussion of the state of the art or changes in the claims. For this purpose, the applicant draws up a detailed response to the office action, containing arguments to convince the Patent Office in his favour.

If the doubts of the Patent Office are eliminated, the patent is granted and the patent specification published. From the day the patent is granted, the owner of the patent can prohibit third parties from using his invention.

What we can do for you

We help you complete the application documents. You will find a list of the required information and a very simple example of a patent application here. Based on the information, we draw up the description, the claims and if necessary, the drawings. We send the documents to the Patent Office, answer the office actions and take care that all is done to obtain the desired patent.

We assist you in defending your patent rights and if an opposition is filed by a third party, we assist you in finding possible ways to protect your invention nationally and internationally at a reasonable price.

Basic principles

A utility model right is the smaller edition of a patent. It has advantages but also disadvantages compared to a patent. An important disadvantage is the shorter term of 10 years, beginning at the filing date.

It is required that the utility model, as with the patent, is new, innovative and commercially applicable. Nevertheless, the “inventive step” is somewhat shorter, so that you can obtain the utility model rights for inventions that are not innovative enough to be patented. A further advantage is that the prior art condition for a utility model is not the same for a patent applied for on the same day.

The Patent Office does not examine whether an application is new and inventive. The utility model is registered after examination of the formal conditions.

What we can do for you

We help you to prepare the documents for the application. You will find a list of the required information and a very simple example here. Based on the information, we draw up the description, the claims and, if necessary, the drawings. We send the documents to the Patent Office, answer the office actions and take care that all is done to get your utility model registered immediately.

We assist you in defending your utility model rights and also if an opposition is filed by a third party.

Utility Model Law

The patent’s „little brother“ – often a strategic option.

Trademark Law

Trademarks are values for the protection and monitoring of which we take care of.

Basic principles

Trademarks are used to label goods and services. A trademark enables the customer to relate the labelled goods and services with a certain firm. The registered trademark is protected for 10 years, starting with the date of the first application. The trademark right may be renewed as often as desired. For the registration at the German Patent and Trademark Office the trademark has to meet a series of requirements. For example, the trademark must be distinctive and mustn’t be descriptive of the goods or services and mustn’t be generic or mislead the customer in any way.

Besides a registered trademark, protection is delivered by unregistered trademarks that acquire a certain degree of recognition among interested circles (“secondary meaning”). The Trademark Act protects trademarks and commercial names, for example: business names, signs or titles of creative works.

Procedure

For the trademark application you need a List of Goods and/or Services for which the trademark will be used. On the basis of the indicated goods and services the Patent Office determines what type of class fee you have to pay.

After submission of the documents, the Patent Office examines if there are absolute or unconditional obstacles to the registration of the trademark. If there are no obstacles, the trademark is registered and published. However, owners of older trademarks may file opposition(s) against the registration of the trademark, if they think that their trademark rights have been infringed upon. In opposition proceedings the Patent Office decides if that is the case. Because of this, the owner of the trademark is asked to present his opinion. After completing the opposition proceedings a decision is made whether the trademark can either stay in the register or has to be removed partially or completely from it.

What we can do for you

We draw up the List of Goods and/or Services for your trademark registration. Then we examine if there are absolute or unconditional obstacles to the registration of your trademark. We take care that your trademark is protected nationwide or worldwide for a reasonable price.

After the application for the trademark rights at the Patent Office, we help you to obtain the registration and support you during the opposition proceedings. After the registration of the trademark, we survey if third parties, for example, competitors, apply for trademarks, which are similar to yours.

Basic principles

Design rights protect “Designs and Models”. In the case of the design of commercial objects such as clocks or drills, the design right should prevent the object’s imitation.

Design rights must be new and have “individual character”. “Individual character” means that the overall impression the design makes on the informed user differs from the overall impression made on such a user by any older design. The duration of a German design right is 25 years. As a rule, design rights are submitted to the Patent Office as a two-dimensional representation, a graphic reproduction of the object or sometimes as a three-dimensional model. After examination of the formal conditions the design right is registered at the Patent Office and published. The Patent Office does not carry out an examination, whether the design really is new and “distinctive”.

What we can do for you

We help you to prepare the documents for the application. We take care of a clear illustration of your design. We send the completed documents to the Patent Office, answer the office actions and take care that all is done to make sure that your design is registered as soon as possible.

Furthermore we assist you in defending your design rights and also if an opposition is filed by a third party.

Design Law

The design of a product often is substantially relevant for the success on the market.

Licensing Law

The successful exploitation of intellectual property rights requires experience and instinct.

Basic principles

You can allow others to use your patents, utility models, trademarks, and the like as well as your know-how. With a licensing agreement you, the licensor, allow the licensee to use your protection rights. An exclusive license allows the licensee to use the protection rights exclusively. With a simple license the rights are limited, for example, to a certain geographical region.

Like in every other agreement, the licensor and the licensee have duties. Among these, there are the royalties, which have to be paid by the licensee, but also the payment of renewal fees for the maintenance of the protection rights as well as the defense of the protection rights against third parties. The duties of licensor and licensee should be settled in the licensing agreement.

What we can do for you

We assist you in handling licensing proceedings, draw up an agreement draft for you and check licensing agreements.

Semiconductor Protection Law

The Semiconductor Protection Law protects three-dimensional structures in microelectronic semiconductor technology (“topography”) and representations, which serve as a model to produce such structures.

The pre-condition for the protection is that the topography has the required “characteristic”. “Characteristic” means that the topography is not a simple copy of other topographies and is not trivial.

The topography is submitted to the Patent Office and registered after examination of the formal conditions. You can also obtain protection for the topography, if you apply for a patent within two years after the first commercial exploitation. The patent is granted for 10 years, beginning with the submission of the patent or the first commercial exploitation.

Variety Protection Law

The Variety Protection Law protects plant varieties with the conditions that the plant variety has the characteristics of distinctness, uniformity, stability, and novelty. Moreover, the plant variety must have a variety name, which can be registered.

The plant variety is registered at the Federal Office of Plant Varieties. After examination of the formal conditions, the Federal Office of Plant Varieties grants the variety protection for the plant. Generally, the plant variety rights are granted for 25 years, starting at the issue date.

Employee Inventions Act

Usually, employees make inventions. The inventions of employees are an important capital for the firm to improve their competitive position. The Employee Inventions Act regulates the type and amount of compensation payment that the employer should pay his employee for an invention.

The Employee Inventions Act also regulates the duties of the employee who developed the invention. In the first place, it makes no difference if it is a private or a business invention. In both cases, the employee has the duty to inform his employer of the invention immediately. Afterwards the employer has to decide whether he wants to make use of the invention. The Employee Inventions Act tries to establish precise procedural rules, in order to safeguard the interests of both, employees and employers, and to avoid arguments. As a consequence, the regulations are relatively complicated and in practice, are hardly taken into consideration. This often leads to disputes if the employee leaves the firm.

Neighboring Laws

Due Diligence

An IP due diligence involves an intensive examination of the company’s legal position with respect to industrial property rights.

Basic principles

It is indispensable, especially for new, technology-based enterprises and other start-ups, to have a monopolistic position protected by patents in order to be able to acquire venture capital. Additionally, due diligence tests play an important role in the area of mergers and acquisitions.

As part of a due diligence test, all of an enterprise’s commercial protections are analyzed. These include patents, patent applications, licenses, trademarks, designs, and other rights. Regarding patents, it must also be taken into consideration that owning a patent alone does not give the right to produce the patented product or to apply the patented process. For this reason it is necessary to check the freedom to operate in many cases.

Among other things, the following questions in regard to patents are answered: Does the enterprise in fact have the sole right to the patent? Is the patent legally valid? How much longer is the patent valid? Is the patent being opposed by a third party? What is the extent of the territory covered under the patent? Does the patent cover the enterprise’s own product?

Similar questions are also posed for trademarks. An important aspect here are the so-called prior right agreements, which can create a considerable limitation of an enterprise’s entrepreneurial freedom. A further aspect is the examination of the genuine use of a trademark, since an unused or underused trademark can possibly not be maintained successfully on the market.

Another consideration is the evaluation of IP rights. The realization of the value of rights can occur in different ways, for example the regulation of production costs by way of license analogy or by way of estimation.

What we can do for you

Carrying out IP due diligence tests is a part of our daily tasks. In addition, we research and draw up expert opinions, which, depending on the aim of the test, evaluate a part of or the complete IP position of an enterprise.

The starting point for an IP due diligence test is an analysis of possible problems and the creation of a time- and money-saving plan of action. Particularly, it will be decided which preparations your enterprise can afford in order to quickly and effectively complete the examination.