Handelsblatt and Best Lawyers have honored “Germany’s Best Lawyers 2025” and we are very pleased to have been mentioned here again. This award is based on surveys of commercial lawyers, so we would like to thank all our colleagues who have recommended us so highly.
Prüfer & Partner recognized in IAM Patent 1000 2025 for Patent Prosecution and Nullity
We are pleased to share that our firm Prüfer & Partner together with six of our intellectual property attorneys have been recognized for their outstanding work in patent prosecution and nullity in the newly published 2025 Edition of IAM Patent 1000, one of the world’s leading rankings with regard to patent services providers. We are very proud and honored that our next generation managing partners Dr. Susanne Sonnenhauser and Dr. Christian Gärtner were also listed for the first time.
Before the Paris Local Division, in a case where the defendant had forced an intervener into the proceedings pursuant to Rule 316A RoP (forced intervention), the intervener has obtained a period of one month for filing its Application to Intervene as well as for filing its Statement in Intervention. Contrary to Rule 316.2 RoP, which mentions a “further period” for filing the Statement in Intervention, the Court did not set any such further period.
Comparison of opposition proceedings at the EPO and revocation actions at the UPC – advantages and disadvantages
Since the introduction of the Unified Patent Court (UPC) in June 2023, a new system for central attacking the validity of and thereby to nullify a European Patent has been introduced. If a European patent of concern is an EU Unitary Patent, or if a classically validated European patent was not opted out from the competence of the UPC, a central revocation action under the UPC now exists in parallel to an opposition before the European Patent Office (EPO). Therefore, the question arises: what are the pros and cons of challenging the validity either before the EPO or before the UPC? The present report provides some guidance and discusses the main advantages and disadvantages of each system – which eventually is a matter of strategic considerations whether and which advantage may prevail – be it costs, timing, speed of proceedings, and possibly other issues.
