IP Law / Fair Trading Law / IT Law

Intellectual property law and media law have always been a special focus of BBH. After many years of experience with traditional copyright law, the drafting and assessing of copyright law-related contracts have become part of our core practice areas. This includes master recording agreements, exclusive label and artist contracts as well as marketing, publishing and merchandising agreements.

Our clients can rely on our specialist legal expertise and knowledge of the entire media sector, particularly in relation to music productions and licensing procedures.

In addition to our litigation practice, we also provide advice on copyright and copyright administration law. We regularly bring cases under the German Collecting Societies Act (Verwertungsgesellschaftengesetz – VGG) before the arbitration board of the German Patent and Trade Mark Office (Deutsches Patent- und Markenamt), particularly in relation to general and individual user agreements. Our advisory services encompass all areas of copyright law.

With respect to industrial property rights, we provide comprehensive advice on competition and trademark law. This includes the assessment of advertising campaigns in terms of their compatibility with competition law and advice on the design of promotional activities, with particular regard to the intended product features and corporate logos. In addition, we take care of the registration and enforcement of national and international trademarks. We also advise designers, illustrators and other creative professionals in the area of industrial design rights.

In the area of IT law, we specialise in the drafting and assessment of software lease and development contracts for standard and customised software as well as for hardware lease and sales contracts. Furthermore, we advise our clients – which include software producers, internet service providers, system vendors and IT customers – on internet-related usage and exploitation rights. In this context, we focus on questions concerning web hosting, web design and domain squatting. Our advisory services in this area also extend to all legal matters relating to digital rights management (DRM).