Law in House 4: IP-Check (Intellectual Property)

Are you considering having your innovative ideas and products protected nationally or internationally? Has your company already successfully registered trade marks, patents or designs? Do you keep an eye on the monitoring of your property rights and do you know which competitors could pose a threat to you with the same or similar trade marks, designs or patents? What about the protection of your business and trade secrets? Are employees subject to a separate duty of confidentiality? Is there a graduated security concept for business and trade secrets in the company?

A company’s intangible assets, known as intellectual property, often play a decisive role in competition. We are talking about know-how available in the company, business and trade secrets, industrial property rights such as trademarks, designs and patents, but also licenses and copyrights. Their protection regularly requires more than just proper registration and monitoring. Since the new Trade Secrets Protection Act came into force in April 2019, your business and trade secrets must be actively protected by appropriate protective measures, otherwise you will lose your protection. Companies also often do not know whether they have sufficient rights of use when they use photos, images, brands etc. or even pass them on to third parties.

We offer you an IP check in relation to your intangible assets, in each case taking into account the spatial and temporal restrictions as well as any sources of error in the monitoring and enforcement of your property rights. We also scrutinise the protective measures in place in your company with regard to the new Trade Secrets Protection Act. We work with you to determine whether there is a need for action with regard to the effective and efficient protection of your innovative products, ideas and business and trade secrets.

For this IP check, in step 1 you provide us in advance (depending on the scope, e.g. by email or via a data room) with the information and documents available in the company, which we should check for any current need for action. We then review this information and documents (usually within a time frame of around 4 to 6 hours, depending on the scope) to determine whether there is a need for action – a complete legal review and revision of the documents does not yet take place within this framework (this complete legal review/revision is offered separately if required).

This may include the following information/documents:

• Documents relating to the application/registration of your property rights (trademarks, designs, patents, registered designs), extensions of property rights, etc.
• License and usage agreements
• Declarations of commitment by employees to maintain business and trade secrets, employment contracts if applicable Employment contracts
• Security concept rsp. Access and entry concept
• Power of attorney and representation regulations

In step 2, we come to your company (usually for a further 4 hours) to discuss any need for action and the next steps with the employees involved in IP law issues. You can then decide for yourself whether your legal department should work out a solution itself using the information obtained during the IP check or whether you would like to take advantage of legal advice and support from us that goes beyond the IP check. In the latter case, we will be happy to provide you with a customised offer.

Cost of this comprehensive IP check: By arrangement. The fee depends on the desired scope of the IP check in terms of content and time.