Ones to Watch Germany 2024: Alexander Wiese

Every year, JUVE Patent carries out extensive research in the German patent market, culminating in the publication of the German patent rankings. Our latest research highlighted Alexander Wiese, newly appointed partner at Wildanger Kehrwald Graf v. Schwerin & Partner, as one of six ‘Ones to Watch’ in the German patent market for 2024.

It’s safe to say that Alexander Wiese has seized the opportunities he has been presented with. His law firm, Wildanger, is currently involved in 13 UPC cases. In seven of them, according to the UPC case search, Alexander Wiese is the main representative. “I was convinced early on that the UPC was a good thing for Europe, so I prepared myself for its launch and to litigate for clients in UPC cases,” says the 37-year-old patent litigator from Düsseldorf. His firm took a somewhat more cautious “wait and see” approach to the new court but then got off to a good start after 1 June 2023.

Coordination and legal briefs dominate

On the very first day, Alexander Weise filed a suit at the Düsseldorf local division for Ocado against arch-rival Autostore over warehouse robots. The dispute has since been settled, as has the action by Access Advance Pool member Dolby against Wildanger’s client Asus and the battle between the German Mittelstand companies KraussMaffei and Troester over a plastics processing technology. Atlas Global’s lawsuits against Vantiva and TP-Link are still in full swing. Wiese is handling these, as well as the defence of regular client Asus against two actions by Lenovo.

As the firm’s “UPC mastermind,” who is not only familiar with the legal issues but also with the technical challenges posed by the court’s much criticised case management system, Alexander Wiese also coordinates and manages other Wildanger cases in the background. In his own cases, work on legal briefs has dominated so far.

First pleading in the court room

Because of the settlements reached in some of the firm’s UPC cases, the dispute between KraussMaffei and Wiese’s client Troester is so far the only suit in which he has been able to argue his case on the big stage in the UPC courtroom. The local division in Munich was the venue for the oral hearing on 16 May 2024.

But the ruling was delayed to await the outcome of EPO proceedings. Finally, no UPC judgment was handed down after all, as the two companies settled their dispute.

Partner at last

2024 also saw Alexander Wiese’s long-held dream of becoming a partner come true. “I studied law to become a lawyer and then to help shape the fortunes of my firm as a partner,” he says. In the large, partner-heavy Düsseldorf patent team of Hogan Lovells, the firm where Wiese spent his first three and a half years as a lawyer, he realised at some point that the dream of making partner was not an easy one to achieve. In October 2018, he moved to Wildanger, where he has spent the last five years working his way up to counsel and finally partner.

Alexander Wiese most likely earned his appointment at the Düsseldorf IP boutique for his extensive work in mobile communications cases before the German patent courts. He works for NPEs VoiceAge and Crystal Clear Codex. Advice to Netlist and Hoccer also falls into this category, which accounts for around 50 percent of Wiese’s work.

Alexander wiese spends less time on disputes over medical products, classic engineering or mechanics patents. Pharmaceutical disputes play just as little a role for him as they do for the firm as a whole. But the pharma industry has yet to discover the UPC.