A trademark or brand is strong capital and always a major investment. Trademarks serve as indications of origin for the identification of a company’s goods and services. Thus, basically all such marks can be protected as trademarks that applicably serve to distinguish a company’s goods or services from that of another company. These consist essentially of word marks, figurative or design marks, and combined word/figurative marks, but can also comprise e.g. two or three-dimensional (form) marks, color marks or position marks.

Trademark Law has been one of our key business areas for many years. Our consulting service covers the entire spectrum of issues surrounding trademark protection.

Many national and international brand suppliers are among our clients. We give the same care and attention to their large brand portfolios as we do to those of smaller mid-sized firms.

As well as contract consulting, our sphere of activity in Trademark Law is especially focused on the development of suitable and individual brand strategies to achieve optimal brand protection, as well as the application and registration of national and international trademark rights, together with the defense of such property rights in both judiciary and out-of-court proceedings. This primarily involves the application and subsequent registration of, a mark, developing a brand strategy, preparing goods and services classification indexes and conducting identity and similarity searches as part of any potential collision check with priority rights.

We offer mark registration with the German Patent and Trademark Bureau, the Office for Harmonization in the Internal Market, as well as international mark registration with the WIPO (World Intellectual Property Organization).

We administer trademark rights in our own database, especially developed for this purpose, in which the trademark portfolios of our clients are maintained, retrieved and archived. In order to avoid any potential dilution of trademark rights, we also offer continuous monitoring of such marks.

We advise in contractual matters and, if required, litigate in the event of rights violation. We also offer clients support in the area of trademark registration and trademark infringement suits in foreign territories. We represent our clients in all administrative and judicial proceedings (opposition suits, cancellation proceedings, etc.) before the DPMA, the Federal Patent Court, the HABM, the European Court of First Instance, and the European Court of Justice. In individual cases, we cooperate with experienced colleagues in situ.

Defending protective rights, for example, includes the drafting of cautions, filing suits, motions to issue preliminary injunctions, protective declarations and defense against unjustified infringement claims. In the contractual area, for example, we also draft demarcation agreements, trademark license agreements, transfer agreements, etc.

We also offer our expertise when it comes to the associated area of product piracy and can complement assertion of our clients’ rights through the EU border control. In the course of border seizure, rights holders have the opportunity of preventing the import and export of such infringing goods into and out of the European Union and Germany from the very outset.

We measure the success of our legal efforts by solutions that are customized to the specific needs and commercial requirements of our clients.