JUVE Comment

The team of lawyers at this full-service firm is well positioned in patents and advises many clients on a wide spectrum ranging from employee-invention law to patent litigation. These include many regular clients from the auto and chemicals industry, such as VW or Wacker Chemie. CBH is increasingly able to combine the particularly outstanding experience in employee-invention law of Jens Kunzmann’s Cologne team and the many years of experience of the Munich lawyers around Stephan Gruber in infringement and nullity suits. The connections of the Cologne-based lawyers to notable industrial companies are often the starting point for this. They recently landed a US electronics corporation as a client. But this is increasingly becoming a two-way street: the Cologne lawyers are now advising two of the Munich team’s high-profile clients, Siemens and Wacker Chemie, on employee-invention law. It remains conspicuous, however, that the litigators are rarely active in pharma suits. The same goes for connected cars suits, despite CBH’s excellent links to car manufacturers and their suppliers. The younger partners in particular do not yet have a visible profile in pharma and SEP cases.

Strengths

Employee-invention law for companies, infringement litigation, esp. for auto and chemistry industries.

Recommended individuals

Kurt Bartenbach (“perfect advice in invention law”, client), Stephan Gruber, (“extremely competent in the legal and technical aspects of litigation”, client), Jens Kunzmann, Martin Quodbach (“he represents us very successfully in invention cases”, client)

Team

5 partners, 4 associates, 1 of counsel

Specialties

In IP, advice and litigation on trademarks, unfair competition and technical protection rights to an equal degree. Strong focus on employee-invention law, infringement and nullity proceedings. Also licences, R&D contracts and transactions.

Clients

Litigation: regularly for Phoenix Contact, Voith Turbo, VW, Wacker Chemie, retailer for consumer goods and a German electronics manufacturer; Schaeffler (both claimant and defendant) against BorgWarner over control valves; Avago (claimant) against Firecomms over opto coupling; VW (defendant) against Metatron over injection technology; Bayer and Thyssenkrupp on patent and inventors’ law; Ford and VW on inventors’ law; litigation and inventors’ law for Siemens and Eberspächer.