Our law firm recommends to every applicant for intellectual property rights to systematically plan the future exploitation of his intellectual property rights even before the first steps towards obtaining an intellectual property right.

To mention only a few important aspects, this includes, amongst others, the consideration of what types of intellectual property rights are appropriate for their activity and their company as well as to which countries geographical protection should be extended.

In addition, it should be ensured that exploitation is possible at all and is not excluded, for example, by intellectual property rights belonging to third-parties. This may be verified by establishing freedom-to-operate analyses and state-of-the-art searches as well as, if appropriate, further legal opinions and expert reports.

It should also be clarified at an early stage whether exploitation will be carried out by the holder of the intellectual property rights, by third parties based on licensing or by a combination of both solutions. In this context, our law firm can help you on these issues by advising on questions of licensing and contract law.

Other aspects, such as the law on employee’s inventions and the right on the invention in general, may play a role in the case of special rights of protection, such as patents.