Ones to Watch Germany 2024: Andreas Duensing

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 Andreas Duensing, counsel at Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan, as one of six ‘Ones to Watch’ in the German patent market for 2024.

At the beginning of his career, no one could have foreseen that Andreas Duensing would one day litigate in major international patent proceedings over technical property rights in various industries. Neither IP nor patents played a particular role in his law studies, his legal clerkship or his LLM at the University of San Diego. His early years as a lawyer at Freshfields in Frankfurt centred around real estate transactions. “I felt very comfortable in the real estate team, but after a bit more than a year, I realised that the work wasn’t for me in the long term,” he says.

When Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan opened a new Stuttgart office in September 2017, he leapt at the chance to take a completely new professional direction. Even though Duensing had had little to do with patent litigation up to that point, he was not completely unfamiliar with the US firm and its litigation work as the young lawyer had completed the elective stage of his legal clerkship at Quinn Emanuel’s Mannheim office. “That gave me an idea of what I was getting myself into, but I was still jumping in at the deep end,” Duensing says.

Building a new team

In addition to a new challenge in patent law, Duensing was keen to be part of Jesko Preuß’ team establishing the new office. Being part of a small team also increased the learning curve. “Even as a young associate, I was tasked with things that lawyers in other firms often only handle when they’ve reached a much higher level of seniority,” he says.

As a result, the 38-year-old already has an impressive track record of extensive international patent proceedings in a wide array of industries and technologies as counsel. He was part of Markus Grosch’s team that advised Google against Sonos in the dispute over control technology for consumer electronics. His experience in patent litigation in various industries has also taken him to the UPC, where he is one of the lawyers who won the case for Tesla against Broadcom in the battle over computer chip technology at the Local Division Hamburg. He is also representing Dexcom in the dispute against Abbott over portable glucose monitoring devices, both at the UPC and in national proceedings. This has not gone unnoticed by competitors, one of whom praises Duensing for his capabilities.

As is standard at Quinn Emanuel, his work is not limited to infringement proceedings. Duensing is acting for Netflix in the nullity suit before the German Federal Patent Court and the Federal Court of Justice as well as in EPO opposition proceedings. A long way from his beginnings in real estate law.