JUVE Comment

Maikowski & Ninnemann ranks among the leading patent attorney firms specialising in electronics patent litigation. The team led by Gunnar Baumgärtel, Andreas Tanner and Frederick Kramer has built impressive credentials representing mobile telecommunications companies, earning a particularly strong reputation in SEP proceedings. The team is now applying this expertise on behalf of clients in numerous ongoing cases concerning video streaming and encoding.

Alongside similarly positioned practices at df-mp Tech and Cohausz & Florack, the team is extensively involved in national infringement and nullity proceedings as well as at the UPC. For instance, it represents long-standing client Xiaomi in a series of cases against Malikie before the Munich Regional Court, the Federal Patent Court and the UPC. EPO oppositions are less common in this technical field, so the firm appears less frequently in such proceedings. The firm also maintains a stable prosecution practice where strategic advice plays a central role.

Recent highlights include new client relationships with Amazon and Meta. The representation of long-standing client Apple against Eyesmatch (public knowledge) further underlines the team’s reputation among tech corporations.

However, the firm faces competition from patent attorney teams within law firms such as Hogan Lovells. Consequently, its patent attorneys most frequently work alongside firms such as Freshfields and Clifford Chance, which are unlikely to develop their own patent attorney capabilities given their full-service structure.

Maikowski & Ninnemann must now establish itself within a shrinking pool of cooperating law firms, whilst its business model relies on large-scale litigation that can settle quickly. Nevertheless, the firm’s experience and scale position it well to meet these challenges.

Strengths

Litigation related to mobile communications.

Recommended individuals

Gunnar Baumgärtel (“great pleadings”, competitor), Ralf Emig, Felix Gross, Frederick Kramer, Christoph Schröder, Andreas Tanner (“puts things in context really well”, competitor; all patent attorneys)

Team

23 patent attorneys

Clients

Amazon against Tagivan and Gensquare over video codec; HTC against Unwired Planet over telecommunications; Continental Automotive against Nokia over SEPs; Lenovo and Motorola against Ueran over telecommunications; Lenovo and Motorola against Headwater over telecommunications; Lenovo against Duk San Neolux over organic electronics; Meta against Philips over video codec; Meta against NovaCloud over telecommunications; Sunmi against Nokia over software (settled 2025); BYD against IP Bridge and SOl IP over telecommunications (settled 2025); Xiaomi against Palmira Wireless over telecommunications (settled 2025); Garmin against Palmira over telecommunications (settled 2025); Xiaomi against Malikie over telecommunications; Phoenix Contact against Harting Electronics over electrical engineering. EPO oppositions: Becton Dickinson against Knapp Smart Solutions over storage technology for pharmaceutical packaging.