Preu Bohlig team spanning Hamburg, Paris and Munich to spin off as Bonabry

The German patent market saw few major staff changes and spin-offs this past year. When 2025 gets under way, however, part of Preu Bohlig’s patent litigation practice will spin off.

It has been eight years since the firm’s former Düsseldorf office spun off. The resulting IP boutique Kather Augenstein focuses on patent litigation and is currently conducting several major UPC lawsuits. In the meantime, Preu Bohlig has strengthened its team, including at the Hamburg office.

Now the latter, led by Daniel Hoppe, Jan Peter Heidenreich and Carl-Alexander Dinges, is leaving to set up its own outfit. The Hamburg team also includes two counsel and another lawyer.

The newly founded law firm Bonabry will also include partners Konstantin Schallmoser and Isabell Werner, who work from Paris but do not advise on French law. In addition, partner Alexander Harguth will open an office in Munich for the new firm. He is the only lawyer from Munich to leave the firm.

A total of 28 lawyers will remain with Preu Bohlig in Munich, Düsseldorf and Berlin.

Preu Bohlig’s strengths

Traditionally, only lawyers work at Preu Bohlig, but they have excellent connections to patent attorneys, partly because they are involved in training the latter.

Preu Bohlig is not only known in the market for its patent practice, but has also been pursuing its “IPplus” concept for many years. This includes a growing pharmaceutical regulatory practice led by pharmaceutical and patent lawyer Peter von Czettritz. Advice on press law and the right of reply, led by partner Torben Düsing in Düsseldorf, is also growing.

Core clients in IP include Hexal, Sandoz, Stada, Alius, Kohlpharma, Janmed and Uhrig.

Preu Bohlig’s Berlin office, led by Christian Donle, enjoys particular renown for its litigation in disputes concerning telecommunications patents. For example, Donle represents Huawei against Intve, Sonion and WaveTouch over SEPs and patents for microphones and fingerprint sensors.

Pure IP at Bonabry

The newly founded Bonabry will operate as an IP boutique focusing purely on IP matters. Core clients in patent law include Stadapharm, Aliud, Betapharm and Accord Healthcare.

Although the partners have different specialties they undertake inter-office work for clients, for example in UPC proceedings. Paris partner Schallmoser and Düsseldorf partner Christian Kau are leading a dispute for Cané against France Développement Électronique. Several partners in both Hamburg and Munich specialise in the life sciences sector and work for clients such as Stada and Aluid.

Schallmoser is currently conducting many of the UPC proceedings, for example preservation of evidence for Primetals Technologies Austria against Danieli. Other examples include his work for Decathlon against five Schwarz Group subsidiaries including Lidl, as well as appeal and damages proceedings for Fives against REEL.