Germany

Firm overview

HOFFMANN EITLE is a well-known European IP boutique firm with more than 100 in-house IP professionals working in seven locations – Munich, London, Milan, Madrid, Dusseldorf, Hamburg and Amsterdam. The firm’s headquarters are in Munich and this is where most of its attorneys are located.

HOFFMANN EITLE, which was founded in 1892, has grown from just one founding member into one of the largest and most renowned law firms in Europe. Its long tradition of excellence is today combined with a truly modern approach to IP consultation, very much to the satisfaction of its many clients. HOFFMANN EITLE’s commitment to quality and competence has also been recognized by the industry, as evident from the numerous awards it has won and its consistently high ranking in major industry guides.

HOFFMANN EITLE offers comprehensive European IP services and competent advice in all technical and legal areas. Its team of more than 90 patent attorneys with European and national qualifications and various technical backgrounds files in excess of 4,000 patent applications each year. HOFFMANN EITLE is the market leader in European Patent Office opposition work, being involved in over 5% of opposition cases.

HOFFMANN EITLE is also very active in patent litigation, both in the coordination of multi-jurisdictional disputes and proceedings at the German courts. In addition, its litigation and licensing team is on hand to provide advice on other IP-related issues, such as competition law, contract law and licensing.

Trademark and design work is another major field of expertise at HOFFMANN EITLE. The firm has a dedicated team of in-house attorneys at law with specialized knowledge in trademark prosecution and litigation.

HOFFMANN EITLE is a multinational firm. Its IP professionals come from a number of countries such as Germany, the United Kingdom, France, Spain, Italy, Ireland, Austria, the Netherlands, Belgium and Denmark as well as from several countries outside of Europe, including the United States, Japan, China and Korea. This means that the attorneys of HOFFMANN EITLE are able to advise clients in many languages, with an understanding of local legal traditions and a network of contacts in their attorneys’ respective home countries.

In addition to HOFFMANN EITLE’s extensive in-house talent, the firm has built up over the years a regional and global network of associate lawyers and law firms which provide HOFFMANN EITLE with any assistance it may require to competently coordinate multinational prosecution and litigation projects for its clients.

The firm’s international client base includes many well-known large corporations as well as small and medium-sized firms from Japan, Korea, China, the United States and Europe.

Network Memberships: German Patent Bar Association; CIPA; IPReg; AIPPI; LES; INTA; AIPLA; IPO 

Last updated6th October 2020

Firm overview

Braun-Dullaeus Pannen Emmerling (BDPE) is a genuine service boutique dedicated to serve clients with the explicit promise to guarantee exclusive, personal advice in the long term. Especially when it comes to IP litigation, BDPE ensures that any risk of a conflict of interest is kept as low as possible.

The Firm
The lawyers at BDPE specialise in litigation and prosecution in the field of intellectual property and combine branch-specific and technical expertise with legal competence. The firm’s partners have been well known in their fields for over 20 years and are among the few established experts in their clients’ industries. This means we can support you not only in an advisory capacity, but also as real business partners who understand your business.
The firm’s expertise is focused on patent and utility model law, on trademark, design and copyright law, as well as on competition, domain and employee invention law. BDPE’s client portfolio includes worldwide corporations and leading companies in Germany and abroad. The firm works with an international network of contacts with other law firms and patent attorneys.

Competence
BDPE’s competence lies in legal representation in patent, trademark and design litigation, as well as in copyright and competition proceedings, protecting innovations, new technologies and products, brands and new designs, and handling the corresponding grant, appeal and opposition proceedings. The firm provides strategic advice on patent portfolios and in all areas of IP law.
BDPE advises and represents its clients across a broad range of technical areas: automotive, computer technology, electrical engineering, electronics, food and beverage production, LED technology, mechanical engineering, medical technology, optical technology, photovoltaic technology, physics, semiconductor technology, software, telecommunications and video/audio encoding. BDPE further specialises in the following industries and sectors: consumer goods, energy suppliers and providers, fashion, furniture and household retailers and media and communication agencies. As a matter of principle, we do not exclude any business sector or field of technology.

Team
Our team is currently composed of seven patent attorneys and two attorneys-at-law based in offices in Dusseldorf and Munich, Germany. The firm and its patent attorneys are frequently recommended by renowned publications and ranking organisations, and have garnered a truly remarkable amount of praise since the founding of the firm in 2019. The firm is already one of the most active in patent litigation before the German courts, especially in connection with mobile communications and electrical engineering patents. Our lawyers have been involved in various high-profile patent litigation proceedings, many of which have concerned standard-essential patents and have had international implications. Partners Friedrich Emmerling and Karl-Ulrich Braun-Dullaeus are highly regarded in Germany, particularly for their work in the telecommunications field and for their activities in German nullity proceedings before the German Federal Patent Court.

Diversity
BDPE promotes diversity! Our attorneys and office staff represent a multitude of nationalities from Europe, Asia and the Americas, and speak as many as 10 different languages. This makes it possible, for example, for our firm to interact directly with a broad client base across the globe and understand cultural differences.
We are committed in our hiring practices to seek out diverse lawyers and office staff and to ensure that they are strategically invested in and advanced. We are further dedicated to non-discriminatory hiring practices and believe that a diverse staff is essential to our practice and success.

Firm overview

Prüfer & Partner mbB is one of Germany’s most renowned IP law firms specializing in IP rights. It protects clients’ ideas, inventions and product developments around the world and enforces their claims in court – whether technical inventions or other IP rights. Today, nearly 70 employees – including 23 patent attorneys, attorneys at law and patent specialists – work for this renowned IP boutique.

Prüfer & Partner was founded in 1972. A successful generation change took place between 1998 and 2002, when Prüfer & Partner was taken over by patent attorneys Dr. Dorothea Hofer, Jürgen Feldmeier and Dr. Andreas Oser. A further milestone was achieved in 2015 with the addition of attorney at law Andreas Jacob as an equity partner and the firm has since entrenched his legal know-how, ensuring future continuity of the patent and legal service.

As an established and highly respected medium-sized law firm, Prüfer & Partner has a stable global network of partners. You can expect a strong and carefully selected community of patent attorneys, lawyers and technical specialists. The firm represents its clients’ interests at the highest level. Prüfer & Partner is familiar with the support of complex and demanding mandates and works with great commitment.

Diligence and expertise play an important role in industrial property law protection. Therefore, Prüfer & Partner patent attorneys and lawyers work strictly to German quality standards: thorough, punctual, cost-efficient.

Over the past 10 years, Prüfer & Partner has continuously expanded its expertise in patent and trademark litigation. Dr. Hofer and Mr. Feldmeier have been advising their client Brother Industries for years in complex patent disputes concerning ink cartridges. Dr. Oser supports the pharmaceutical industry, including assisting Novartis in building up its patent portfolio. Mr. Jacob is not only active in both patent and trademark litigation before German courts, but also assists his clients in international disputes, particularly in China-related cases. Other Prüfer & Partner attorneys, including Dr. Christian Einsel, also regularly litigate both active and passive patent lawsuits. In addition, Marion Ziliox works for French and Asian clients, among others, in customs actions at EU borders. As a result, Prüfer & Partner has well-founded expertise in the entire IP field.

In addition, Prüfer & Partner has a well-established Asian Desk and continuously cultivates its business in Asian countries – in particular Japan, China and Korea.

Looking to the future, Prüfer & Partner plans to both consolidate and broaden its activities in Germany to serve German and European clients, in particular small and medium-sized enterprises and start-ups, helping them protect their innovations and strengthen their position in an increasingly competitive market. Located in Munich, the German heart of intellectual property, Prüfer & Partner is dedicated to serving its clients as a one-stop-shop IP boutique.

Firm overview

Kather Augenstein is a law firm consisting of 5 partners and 8 lawyers specialising in IP law. This makes our team of 13 IP lawyers larger than many other teams of international law firms in Germany. Our team has years of experience and know-how in IP litigation, especially in the field of patent law. Patents and utility models are the main focus of the work of the lawyers at Kather Augenstein. We have enforced IP rights from all technical fields, in particular telecommunications, automotive, pharmaceuticals, medical technology, biotechnology, nano-technology, mechanical engineering, chemistry and many more.
Our lawyers bring experience from a boutique firm like Preu Bohlig and large law firms like Linklaters and Bird & Bird to the table. This combines the best of "both worlds" of a boutique law firm as well as large international law firms. For each mandate, we form a tailor-made team which advises and represents our clients at the highest level, also in the field of patent law. All of our partners have extensive expertise in all areas of intellectual property law. Kather Augenstein is unique in terms of size and structure. With 13 specialised IP lawyers, we have a powerful team that can work together on a single large case if necessary. This enables us to represent our clients in major litigation as well. Thanks to our firm size, we are more flexible than many large international law firms, as, among other things, the decision-making channels are much shorter.