TBK

Patents/Utility Models

Patents and utility models protect the technical aspects of your product ideas. Our services range from drafting application documents to enforcing and defending your rights.

Drafting of application documents

We put your invention into words and pay attention to ensuring a broad scope of protection to render copying/counterfeiting difficult for your competitors. The formulation and structure of the specification follows a concept which is based on our longstanding experience and which facilitates the grant of a patent in the different patent systems.

Examination/granting procedure

We are in an excellent position to efficiently accompany you through the examination procedure and obtain the broadest scope of protection while keeping the number of office actions to grant as low as possible because we have the required technical and legal expertise and understand the examiners' way of thinking.

Opposition and nullity proceedings

We can monitor your competitors' filing activities and use third-party observations to influence the scope of protection of their applications even during the examination procedure. Interfering patents will be eliminated as far as possible. To achieve this, our internal search department traces the relevant prior art in close cooperation with our attorneys to develop comprehensive measures of attack on the basis of lack of reproducibility, inadmissible broadening and prior public use. Naturally, we also have great experience in defending your patents against attacks by others.

Litigation

Before your products are put on the market, we can assist you in assessing the legal situation according to patent law by means of a freedom-to-operate analysis. Our infringement opinions provide you with a secure basis for evaluating possible collision of your planned products with existing intellectual property rights. Together with our validity opinions, these strengthen your position for negotiations with competitors. Should legal disputes be unavoidable, however, we will assist you in both infringement and nullity proceedings. We can then enforce your rights by means of preliminary injunctions or by border seizures. Our regular service at the Messe München (Munich trade fair) supports immediate clarification of collision issues.

Trademarks and Company Signs

Trademarks not only identify goods and services as well as their origin to make them distinguishable for the customer. They can also be used for advertising, communication and investment purposes. We can collaborate with you from the creation up to the enforcement of your trademark.

Strategic advice on trademark creation

From the very creation of a trademark, we can provide you with a strategy for minimizing any risks that might arise in obtaining and enforcing your trademark. Our decades of experience and contacts with creative professionals are of benefit through the whole process.

Searches

We make an effective global check of any kind of symbols. Our longstanding cooperation with well-known search institutes and world-wide contact network of (patent) law firms enable us to adapt our search strategy exactly to your needs.

Official procedures

We carry out filing and registration of trademarks all over the world and can represent you in opposition and cancellation proceedings before the DPMA, the EUIPO and WIPO.

Collision monitoring and border seizure

We provide effective and complete monitoring of your trademarks to identify potentially colliding new filings and to take action against them. We also initiate border monitoring in close cooperation with customs, assisting you in effectively fighting against trademark piracy by preventing even the import of counterfeit products.

Litigation

For many decades, we have acted and advised in the case of litigious trademark procedures. Our attorneys are admitted before the Federal Patent Court, all civil courts (Regional Courts, Higher Regional Courts, and the Federal Supreme Court in cooperation with specialised colleagues) and the European Court of Justice. If appropriate, we enforce your rights by means of preliminary injunctions or border seizures.

Designs

The design of your products is another component worth being protected, in addition to the pure technical aspects. We are passionate about designs, and have developed into specialists in this field. We would be very pleased to provide reliable counsel on how to effectively protect your designs and consistently enforce your design rights.

For most designs, it makes sense to have them registered. We can request and complete this for you at the EUIPO, the DPMA, the UKIPO or the WIPO.

Especially for short-term designs (such as fashion goods), protection can also be achieved without a registration. When enforcing your rights based on such designs or on designs, which have not been registered, we rely on the European regulations regarding unregistered community designs (UCD), as well as copyright and unfair competition law.

Our specialities in this field also include expert opinions on the infringement and the validity of design rights, freedom-to-operate analyses, searches for existing design creations as well as requests for border seizure.

We will enforce your rights in regular court proceedings, in injunction proceedings as well as out of court, as appropriate.

Competition Law

Competition law protects you against unfair competition. This takes the form of unfair advertising, misleading consumers, product piracy or other unfair behaviour of a competitor – in all these cases, our experienced team of attorneys will assist you by taking all available measures, such as preliminary injunctions, protection letters, warning letters und court actions.

IT Law

IT law is currently highly relevant and is a particularly complex and interdisciplinary field of law. As certified data protection officers (supervisors) having in-house experience, we offer you tailor-made solutions for your company's daily practice/routine.

Copyright and Media Law

Copyright protects your intellectual achievements, for example regarding presentations of your products in catalogues. Due to digitalisation and the related increasingly rapid spread of contents, copyright infringements occur every day and may often only be prosecuted by consistent and quick action. We can help you in taking suitable counter-measures.

Licenses, Transfers and Due Diligence

Holders of rights may grant licenses to third parties. We would be pleased to provide counsel regarding the various models available for exclusive or non-exclusive licenses, and to draft a tailor-made contract for you. Transfers of all kinds of rights are part of our daily business. When company acquisitions are planned, we provide a due diligence investigation into the intellectual property rights involved.

Strategic Consultancy

Before placing a product onto the market, it is important to avoid potential infringements of intellectual property rights and to protect your own product in the best possible manner. Even ideas which are not realized by the product or which appear not to be protectable may be worth filing as an application for other reasons. It should also be clarified which type of property right is suitable, and in which countries it is worthwhile to have a protective right. We will gladly advise and assist you with all these strategic considerations.