Christian W Appelt studied physics, majoring in solid state physics (Dipl Phys), at the University of Erlangen-Nuremberg, Germany.
He has worked as a patent attorney at BOEHMERT & BOEHMERT since 1995. In addition to his professional career in Europe, he worked in Japan for two years for a patent law firm in Osaka, in the patent department of Ebara Corporation and in the IP department of Sony Corporation in Tokyo.
His professional work involves technical IP rights (ie, patents and utility models) with respect to registration, enforcement, litigation and licensing. He advises and represents clients in opposition proceedings and nullity proceedings before the German authorities and courts, as well as before the European Patent Office (EPO). He has been heavily involved in litigation and invalidation procedures in the smartphone patent wars in Germany, representing a major US client in both defensive and offensive cases. He represents European, US, Chinese and Japanese clients in many dispute proceedings.
Mr Appelt advises companies on setting up internal IP processes and departments. He regularly teaches on IP law and has been a visiting lecturer at the University of Applied Sciences, Kiel since 2004 and Tokai University, Tokyo since 2005. He also gives regular seminars on various aspects of IP law, in particular for the WIPO, the EPO, the Association of German Engineers (VDI), the Tokyo University of Science, and since 2015 at the “Düsseldorfer Patentrechtstage”, lecturing on case law of the Boards of Appeal of the EPO.
Christian W. Appelt has been a member of the Board of the German chapter of the Licensing Executives Society (LES) since 2010, acting as President from 2018 to 2020 and is now member of the Advisory Board of LES Germany. He is also member of the German Association for the Protection of Intellectual Property (GRUR).
Mr Appelt wrote, together with his partner Heinz Goddar, the EPC Handbook – Guide for Practitioners, the fourth edition of which was published in Japan, and which has also been published in China, Taiwan and India, as well as in Arabic language.
Network Memberships:
