The core area of patent law is the protection of your inventions from their undesirable use by your competitors. We should be glad to support you in realising your invention, drafting your patent application, the representation of your application in the examination proceedings to the grant of a patent both at the German and European Patent Office. Moreover, we will be glad to advise and represent you when you wish to challenge existing intellectual property rights of your competitors within the scope of opposition or nullity proceedings or in the defence of your patent when it is challenged by competitors.
The first step in the protection of your invention is drafting an application providing for the optimum level of protection for you. In this regard, we usually initiate preliminary discussions with the inventors and a patentability investigation for identifying the relevant prior art to enable us to establish the optimum scope of protection for you. Then, our experts in the respective technical field will draft a patent application including all the required elements with you so that your invention can be filed with your desired patent office as soon as possible.
After your patent application has been filed, the grant proceedings at the German or European Patent Office will follow. With our long-standing and comprehensive experience in the successful support of our clients in patent grant proceedings, we will of course be glad to advise and represent you in all issues arising so that your patent application is in grantable form after having successfully passed the examination proceedings and the patent office will grant you a patent.
A specific core competence of our work is the representation of our clients in bilateral opposition proceedings. It is not unusual that a competitor‘s granted patent is to be challenged within the framework of opposition proceedings within the opposition period of nine months after the publication of the grant of a patent, or that an own intellectual property right is opposed. Part of our Team is specialised in conducting bilateral proceedings, and our special expertise gained thereby will render it possible for you to achieve your optimum result.
Apart from patents, also utility models registered on a national level constitute critically important intellectual property rights. Particularly the rapid and cost-effective registration of utility models in Germany for obtaining intellectual property rights constitutes an important tool for a broader protection and/or the rapid enforcement of your own rights. Our experienced Team of Patent Attorneys will be glad to comprehensively advise you in your decision with regard to a utility model application, the drafting of the application documents, as well as in conducting the registration proceedings or in cancellation proceedings against utility models of competitors or in the defence against attacks on your own utility model rights.
