Taliens partner strikes out alone with new Munich practice

Peter Koch (45) is leaving IP boutique Taliens, which has offices in Munich, Madrid and Paris, at the end of July to set up his own practice in the Bavarian capital. Operational from 1 August 2023, the new firm PENFORCE will focus on patent litigation in Koch’s specialist areas of mechanics, electronics and medical devices.

Aside from one individual, who will be working alongside Koch as an external academic counsel, he will begin PENFORCE as the sole partner and employee. However, Koch is planning on expanding the team in the current months. As well as patent litigation expertise, Koch also works on cases involving utility models, trade secrets and patent-related antitrust law.

Peter Koch

An active career

Although his new firm will focus solely on patent litigation, when Peter Koch started his professional career in 2007 at Greyhills he was mainly active in trademark litigation.

In spring 2008, he moved to Jones Day, followed by another move to Wragge & Co. in 2011, where he joined the team around Alexander Bayer and Michael Schneider. The team had set up the Munich office for the Birmingham-based firm.

The firm initially merged with Lawrence Graham in 2014 to form Wragge Lawrence Graham. Another merger followed in 2016, this time with Canadian firm Gowling to form Gowling WLG. Koch then departed Gowling WLG for Pinsent Masons, which he left in 2021 to become a partner at Taliens.

During his time at Pinsent Masons, Koch was part of the team that represented LST in the ski lift patent dispute against Innova. He also regularly advised on medical device patents, such as for Neovasc Tiara in its dispute with Edwards Lifesciences over heart valve technology.

Koch at Germany’s courts

With the opening of PENFORCE, Koch is set to bring multiple clients to the new firm. These include infringement and invalidity actions for Hoverkey, which he initially brought as a contact from Pinsent Masons, as plaintiff against Salesforce and AWS in separate actions, and as defendant against Salesforce, over authentication procedures for cloud platforms. Koch is also representing RockPaTech as the plaintiff against Western Digital and SanDisk at the Regional Court Mannheim.

He is working for Peer against Comuto over navigation technology, for SWAT against Protembis over embolic protection devices for aortas, and for Aerofoils as defendant against Fliteboard over propeller-powered surfboards. For Peer, Koch will work alongside the patent attorneys of WBH Wachenhausen.

Speaking to JUVE Patent, Peter Koch says, “I greatly valued my time at Taliens, but I am looking forward to launching my own practice in Munich, as an independent partner, from which I can represent my clients in courts across Germany. There’s a strong network of younger patent litigators in Europe which I am excited to be a part of, especially when it comes to forming strategies for clients and with the UPC in mind.”

Taliens focuses internally

Following his departure, the Taliens patent team has one partner, two counsel and two associates in Munich. Another partner, Monika Stöhr, is also involved in non-contentious patent matters. The IP boutique also has three partners in Paris, two of whom predominantly focus on patent.

Speaking to JUVE Patent, co-founder and partner at Taliens, Thomas Lynker, says, “We thank Peter Koch for the good cooperation and wish him all the best and every success. The firm will always be open for opportunities and will also be considering lateral partner hires, in all our practice areas. However, it is very important for us that new people fit to our culture and values. Also, with our counsel Christian Werner we have an experienced patent litigator in our team who is a natural candidate for partnership.”