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Boutique with scale
Areas of Expertise
Lorenz Seidler Gossel
Rechtsanwälte Patentanwälte
Partnerschaft mbB

Widenmayerstraße 23
D-80538 Munich

Telephone: +49 (0)89 290 100
Telefacsimile: +49 (0)89 290 10 100
info@lsg.eu
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Design law

A strong design is often the first impression a product makes on customers—and is therefore a decisive competitive factor. Design law protects this creative achievement and ensures that creative ideas cannot be freely imitated by competitors.
What does design law protect?

Design law protects the external appearance of a product or individual parts thereof. This includes in particular:

  • lines and contours,
  • colors and surface structures,
  • the shape and materials used.

It is the visual design that is protected, not the technical function. This enables companies to safeguard the individuality of their products and effectively protect their investments in design and brand image.

Ways to Protect Designs

Our clients have various options for legally protecting their designs:

  • German design: Registration with the German Patent and Trademark Office (DPMA).
  • EU design: Registration with the European Union Intellectual Property Office (EUIPO) with protection in all EU member states. –
  • International design: Registration via the Hague Agreement with protection in selected countries worldwide.

In addition, there is the unregistered EU design, which offers automatic protection for a limited period of time—a flexible option for fast-moving markets, such as the fashion or consumer goods industries.

Our support in design law
Our clients enjoy comprehensive support in the field of design law - beginning with a check of the protectabiliy, moving on to the application for a registered design and to the drafting of a contract, and ending with representation in legal disputes before and outside of court.
Enforcement and Defense of Rights

A registered design gives its owner exclusive rights of use. We consistently enforce these rights for our clients—whether against imitations, unauthorized imports, or copied variants. At the same time, we also advise on challenges to the validity of third-party designs, for example in nullity proceedings.

Our clients thus benefit from a clear legal framework to effectively protect their products and investments.

Comprehensive expertise in all areas of intellectual property law

Our expertise

Start-ups

We support start-ups with tailor-made legal solutions, from formation to scaling, and accompany them in all areas of intellectual property and corporate strategy.

Due diligence

Our due diligence services offer you comprehensive legal assessments in the context of transactions, particularly with regard to intellectual property and corporate assets.

We support buyers and sellers in the evaluation of patents, trademarks, and licenses and accompany the deal with our special expertise in all aspects of intellectual property law.

Competition law

Competition law protects the integrity of the market and ensures fair competition. It focuses in particular on fair competition, the prevention of unfair practices, and the enforcement of legitimate claims.

Competition law not only protects your own rights, but also helps to ensure that marketing, advertising, and sales activities comply with the law.

Software law and IT

Legal questions relating to all aspects of trademarks, competition and copyright protection play a significant role in the areas of information technology and the internet. The know-how we have acquired over the years in the classical IP disciplines is complemented by our high expertise in connection with new technologies.

Copyright

Copyright protects intellectual creations in literature, science, and art. It grants the author personal and economic rights to their works, regardless of whether they are registered or not.

Unitary Patent

With the Unitary Patent and the European Patent Court (EPG), it has been possible for the first time since 2023 to enforce patents with uniform effect centrally in large parts of the European Union. We offer comprehensive advice and support with regard to the new European patent court system and its advantages for your international patent applications. You can find our information brochure on this topic here.

Patent law

Lorenz Seidler Gossel offers comprehensive advice in all matters relating to patents and utility models and represents clients before German courts. Our attorneys-at-law and patent attorneys accompany companies and developers from the first application for the patent or utility model to the drafting of corresponding license agreements and up to the enforcing of rights against third parties. We develop individual application and court strategies tailored to your specific industry for this purpose.

We offer special knowledge of the following industrial and scientific fields: Mechanical engineering, automotive technology, medical engineering, physics, electrical engineering, electronics, general mechanics, chemistry, telecommunications, computer-implemented inventions, material sciences.

Trademark law

We can offer our clients a full-service in all areas of trademark protection and will stay at your side from the creation of a mark to its registration and its enforcement.