JUVE Comment

This firm is a market leader in patents and boasts Austria’s best-known patent litigation team internationally. This is largely because numerous major life sciences companies entrust the practice with the Austrian part of their international litigation and advice in the background. Litigation for Novartis, for instance, is public knowledge. In these international cases, the IP practice works hand in hand with leading firms in other European jurisdictions but does not have any formal partnerships.

The firm also advises and litigates for a host of companies from various sectors concerning IT and mechanical patents, and recently gained new clients. The team around the extremely well-renowned and experienced Christian Gassauer-Fleissner has a balanced age structure and, with Dominik Göbel and others, the largest team of well-established, highly visible lawyers in the market. He and another younger partner are successfully broadening trademarks and unfair competition advice. But there is still a long way to go before the firm achieves the same outstanding reputation in soft IP as it has for patents and know-how protection.

Strengths

Strategic advice and litigation, specialisation in pharma patents, know-how protection.

Recommended individuals

Christian Gassauer-Fleissner (“experienced veteran in patent litigation”, competitor), Dominik Göbel (“up-and-coming, confidence-inspiring lawyer”, competitor)

Team

3 partners, 2 trainee lawyers

Specialties

Broad-based firm with a mainstay in IP. Clear focus on patent disputes. Strategic advice on protection rights, and increasingly know-how protection. Also licences, trademarks and unfair competition, product piracy, counterfeits and seizures. Pharma, medical products, consumer goods manufacturers. High proportion of international clients.

Clients

Litigation: Playbrush against non-practising entity Brush Gate concerning patents for toothbrushes with apps and on various licensing, delivery and marketing contracts; frequent activity for Novartis and Eli Lilly (all public knowledge).