Trademark

A trademark has always ennobled a particular product or a particular service. A branded article is more than a no-name-product. Trademarks can be a company name - and then for all products - or names differing from the company name - for example word marks, picture marks and combined word/picture marks -, or new trademark forms such as three dimensional trademarks, audio marks, colour marks etc. The mark protection offers a very effective and - by means of provisional injunction - easily enforceable and moreover temporarilly unlimited protection against product piracy (for example: the imitation of a Rolex watch would be worthless without using the "Rolex"-trademark on the clock face). This type of protection also applies if patent or utility model protection has expired for the technology of the product.

Trademark protection can only be achieved in most countries by formal registration of the trademark, in many countries up to three different trademark systems are competing against one another, but also being able to be combined with one another. In this field it is particularly important to develop the right strategy taking into account sufficient protection on the one hand and the lowest possible costs on the other hand.

Due to the fact that the trademark law is a focal point of our advisory activities, we offer our clients the whole spectrum in trademark issues with a great deal of experience in our background, in particular the implementation of search, the appraisal of the protectability of a trademark, the implementation of trademark applications during the official examination proceedings, the enforecement of trademark rights with respect to infringing parties, and in particular advice when establishing a national and international trademark portfolio. Here we offer individual consultancy in the utilisation of overlapping trademark right systems for the purpose of obtaining the most cost-effective possible protection for a particular geographical area. We monitor the trademark rights of a large number of our clients nationally or internationally to the desired extent so that any threatened infringements are identified at an early stage and can be combated at reasonable cost. We also support our clients in the generation of trademarks in co-operation with companies specialising in the latter.