Geskes operates all over the world and thanks to a large network of partners is the best for your property rights with a wide range of services and decades of experience.
With us you don’t expect any technical speak. We explain the facts and relationships of industrial legal protection and law against unfair competition so that you are always in the picture and your decisions are based on facts and findings which you completely understand. This enables you to have an overview of your trademarks, patents and designs at any time.
Keep control of your property rights. We advise you early on expiring property rights so that you can always make decisions about the further procedure in good time.
Our registered office is certainly in beautiful Cologne. However, we are not only represented regionally but linked internationally with numerous partners. Thanks to our numerous excellent partners, we offer comprehensive protection of your trademarks, patents and designs over almost the whole world.
Our procedure when defending your property rights and interests follows a strategically conceptual approach with your interests at the centre. We therefore offer you an overview and corresponding solutions for your respective requirements.
With us you receive cumulative expertise for the protection of your trademarks, patents and designs with a long trademark history and the management of trademarks which in some cases goes back to 1912. We provide our many years of experience and cumulative competence fully in the service of your property rights.
Our colleagues not only offer you the afore-mentioned competences, we are also particularly proud of the commitment, motivation and exceptional working atmosphere in the entire team. We really enjoy our legal consultation work which you will discover in personal conversation and the results speak for themselves.
Behind our firm there is a competent team with many years’ experience in industrial property rights and law against unfair competition.
Industrial property rights should be comprehensively protected.
Thanks to our international network of law firms in over 120 countries around the globe we are ideal partners for this.
P. S. Davar and Company
New Delhi, Indien
SungAm Suh International Patent & Law Firm
Seoul, Korea
KYOSEI INTERNATIONAL PATENT OFFICE
Tokyo, Japan
Hohshin IP Firm
Osaka, Japan
Griffith Hack
Melbourne, Australien
TABERER Attorneys
Cape Town, Südafrika
Jackson Etti & Edu
Lagos, Nigeria
Bojinov & Bojinov Ltd.
Sofia, Bulgarien
CURELL SUÑOL SLP
Propiedad Industrial & IP Attorneys
Barcelona, Spanien
Bejin Bieneman PLC
Southfield, USA
Dinsmore & Shohl LLP
Troy, USA
BURRIS LAW, PLLC
Detroit, USA
Castellanos & Co.
Inntellectual Property Law Firm
Bogota, Kolumbien
Uhthoff, Gomez Vega & Uhthoff S.C.
Mexiko City, Mexiko
Owen, Wickersham & Erickson, P.C.
Concord, USA
Dannemann Siemsen
Rio de Janeiro, Brasilien
Patents and utility models protect technical teachings. Technical objects such as soap dispensers, outer packagings, transmissions, lights and also chemical compositions such as detergents or pharmaceuticals can be protected by a patent. Furthermore, both inventive uses of these products and also methods for producing the same can be protected with a patent.
We offer you support in all matters of patent law. Our main areas of expertise are in the fields of mechanics, measurement technology and chemistry. Our clients primarily include medium-sized innovative companies, unsung heroes, such as automobile suppliers and manufacturers of consumer goods.
On the filing side our services comprise the filing of patents and utility models, searches of the prior art, preparation of filing strategies, conducting filing processes before various patent offices and the administration of property rights, including the payment of maintenance fees.
We have extensive experience in nullity suits and represent you together with legal attorney colleagues in court infringement proceedings. We offer support in opposition proceedings in the course of defending your own property rights and when filing oppositions against patents of third parties.
To avoid potential patent infringements, we conduct “freedom-to-operate” searches to analyse the patent law environment and identify possible infringements.
We support you with the marketing of patents and utility models by drawing up contracts as well as cooperation agreements, purchase agreements and licence agreements.
Our comprehensive consultation in the area of trademark and commercial designations covers all aspects which you should take into account when securing and enforcing your trademark rights. From the first idea to the successful registration and beyond we are at your side. We have successfully obtained property rights for our clients in over 100 countries.
We offer you a number of services in the preliminary stages of trademark applications. This includes the careful examination of your signs to assess protectability and registrability. We assist you with the development of your trademark and take over the legal examination as to whether this can be used. Identity and similarity searches evaluated by us help to identify possible conflicts with already existing trademarks or other characteristics.
For the filing of your trademark at home and abroad we prepare an individual filing strategy in agreement with you and prepare a suitable list of goods and services taking into account your current areas of business and future scope for expansion.
The administration of your trademarks is in good hands with us. We monitor the payment of renewal fees so that your trademarks remain in force. In addition, we remind you of the submission of Declarations of Use and other necessary submissions to avoid losing the trademark. We also assist you with paraphrases so that you can easily enforce your trademarks worldwide.
We know how important it is to identify potential conflicts at an early stage. For this reason, we offer you trademark monitoring at home and abroad. We keep you up to date with newly filed or registered trademarks of third parties. We provide you with a well-founded legal assessment and advise you when deciding whether the trademark positions identified require a reaction on your part so as not to devalue your trademark. In cases of disputes we are at your side both during out-of-court and court proceedings to enforce your mark.
When modernising your trademark, we are also at your side with advice and action and check whether new or additional trademark applications are required.
The law relating to employee inventions regulates the remuneration of employee inventions and is frequently criticized both by domestic and foreign companies. According to this law, companies must pay their inventive employees a remuneration for usage of the employee’s invention in addition to their wages.
We advise you in the field of employee invention law and assist you with drawing up the necessary contracts. If desired, we implement a complete employee inventor system in your company, including operating agreements and workflows of internal sequences. This considerably simplifies the administration of employee inventor remunerations. In addition, positive incentives for inventors are created in your company and the employee invention law is used to increase the motivation and innovation capability of your employees and to promote the success of innovations.
Our assistance applies both to companies and employee inventors when enforcing their claims.
Designs protect the external appearance of items such as furniture and standard lamps and also of everyday items. Internal modes of operation or product ideas which can be protected by patents are not protected.
We look after the filing of designs at the German Patent and Trademark Office, at the EU Intellectual Property Office and at offices in other countries.
The application is crucial to specify the scope of protection for possible infringement proceedings. Problems with enforcement towards product pirates frequently arise due to insufficient diagrams in the design application.
In order to be protectable as a design, this must be new and unique. We carry out searches for registered designs to determine whether there is sufficient distance from already known designs.
We defend designs for you against attacks of third parties, issue warnings and conduct infringement proceedings against infringers and, if appropriate, assert claims on the basis of protection from counterfeit under the law against unfair competition.
If action is taken against you as a result of the use of a design of third parties on account of an alleged infringement, we advise you about the possibilities for defending. The claims of third parties can frequently be completely repelled or ways of minimizing the damage and finding an economic solution can be identified.
The law against unfair competition (UWG) forbids certain behaviours and classifies these as unfair. In contrast to industrial property rights which protect intellectual property, the law against unfair competition relates to unfair behaviour of market participants in business dealings.
Claims from the law against unfair competition can be asserted by competitors, chambers of industry and trade, chambers of crafts, consumer associations or associations of market participants. Claims for injunctive relief, abatement or removal, information and compensatory damages can be relevant.
The law against unfair competition also protects against counterfeits as part of protection from counterfeits under the law against unfair competition. This does not require registration like industrial property rights but imposes certain requirements on the copied product such as the presence of a competitive uniqueness. The law against unfair competition offers an effective opportunity for fighting counterfeits by means of interlocutory injunctions which can be issued quickly to outlaw counterfeits and clean up the market.
We offer you comprehensive support, advice and representations in disposition and lawsuit proceedings before the competent courts.
The seizure of property-rights infringing goods by customs authorities is an inexpensive and effective enforcement measure for industrial property rights. Border seizure processes enable the property rights owner to identify infringers, to track the flow of piracy products worldwide and prevent the entry into the market of counterfeits at the borders. This considerably reduces the risk of exploitation of reputation or dilution of a trademark and the impairment of the reputation of a company in relation to technical products and design items.
We have many years of experience in border seizure methods at home and abroad. The request for border seizure must be regularly updated and include identification information for counterfeits. We take over this activity for you to continuously provide the customs authorities with up-to-date and essential data for identifying infringements of your property rights.
When a customs office has discovered an intentional forgery, we check in agreement with you, whether this involves forgeries or original products. In most cases, a simplified destruction of forgeries can be carried out. We have a wide network of warehouse keepers, forwarders, recyclers and foreign attorneys to ensure a smooth sequence of border seizures.
Furthermore, in agreement with you, we are pleased to offer training together with customs to make border seizure more effective.
We draw up and check contracts relating to industrial property rights. Our contracts take into account your interests and needs. We conduct negotiations for you towards a successful completion. Contracts can be drafted in German, English and/or French. We also assist you in evaluating contracts you receive from business partners or third parties in order to be able to assess associated risks and economic effects. In addition, we ensure that contracts comply with competition law regulations.
Settlement agreements are another focal point of our work, particularly in trademark and commercial designation law. Through a settlement or co-existence agreement, conflicts can be resolved without tedious court proceedings to clarify the registration and usage position.
We have extensive experience in drafting licence agreements for patents, trademarks, utility models, designs and knowhow. Since licence agreements are not legally regulated, it is important to ensure that regulatory loopholes can be avoided and make the correct choice of type of licence. In particular, minimum licence agreements, royalty rates for the use of the property right or rights and, for example, regulations relating to an extended workbench must be specified.
In discussions we determine with you the important framework conditions for you as licensor or licensee. We prepare draft agreements, check licence agreements offered, conduct negotiations and explain alternative regulations and their scope so that you can make informed economic decisions.
Discover our effective online services for your property rights! With our in-depth technical knowledge and our rapid sharing, we enable you to make decisions calmly. But that is not all – we go one step further to make it easier for you to administer your property rights, develop technical innovations and monitor the activities of your competitors 24/7 via access to our online tools:
A) We offer you online access to your property rights portfolio which we administer. Via our user-friendly platform you not only have access to your documents such as certificates, publication documents and acknowledgements of receipt but also to complete official or court correspondence if you wish. In this way, you can save on your own administration.
B) Tailored monitoring profiles for comprehensive patent monitoring in the relevant technical areas for your business enable you to build up a knowledge database for your own technical developments. In this way, you always have the competition in view and are informed in good time about potential developments initiated by third parties which could be relevant for your company.
Put your trust in us as your reliable partner for all matters around your industrial property rights and let us help you to secure the crucial head start for your company!
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