According to a statement from the European Commission, micro as well as small and medium-size companies are the motor of the European economy. In many fields, these enterprises are pioneers of technical progress, i.e. many important innovations are created in these companies.
It is therefore important to advise these companies with regard to matters of intellectual property rights if no or only limited experience is present. If experience already exists, counsel can serve optimize the hitherto used methods of prosecution of inventions and intellectual property rights. This concerns, for example, among others:
- a reporting system for employees’ inventions,
- supervision of deadlines and formalities stipulated by the Act on Employees’ Inventions (ArbEG), including the calculation of a possibly existing claims for remuneration,
- the question whether it is useful to apply for a patent or utility model for a particular technical development,
- the management of the portfolio of existing intellectual property rights,
- a continuous watch on third party rights (for example patent monitoring)
- etc.