JUVE Patent

Dorothea Hofer joined Prüfer & Partner in 1993 and has been a managing partner since 1998. After gaining her PhD in physics from the Ludwig Maximilian University in Munich, she worked for Siemens in the area of semiconductor technology.

Dr Hofer’s practice includes:

• patent and utility model infringement proceedings before the Regional Courts of Munich, Düsseldorf, Mannheim and Hamburg, and before the competent higher regional courts;
• opposition proceedings before the European Patent Office and before the German Patent and Trademark Office and Federal Patent Court;
  nullity proceedings before the Federal Patent Court and the Federal Supreme Court;
• patent prosecution with view to different jurisdictions, such as EP, the US, CN and JP;
• drafting of and advising in relation to license agreements and research cooperation agreements;
• employee inventions; and
• trademarks and designs, in particular trademark oppositions before the German Patent and Trademark Office and before the EUIPO, as well as advising in trademark and design litigations.

Dr Hofer represents multinational corporations and small and medium-sized enterprises in various areas, in particular in the fields of physics, in particular optics, laser technology and optoelectronics, semiconductor technology, various fields of medical technology, 3D printing, computer-related inventions.

She frequently holds seminars on IP law both in Germany and abroad, and often travels to Japan and the US where she has a strong client base.

Dr Hofer has obtained the European Patent Litigation Certificate issued by the University of Maastricht in cooperation with the Academy of European Law (ERA) in Trier. This includes an extensive practical and theoretical training in the law underlying the Unified Patent Court (UPC) and related fields of European law.