IT PROJECT DISPUTE RESOLUTION

The law firm primarily advises on civil disputes and represents clients in and out of court.

Defense against infringement claims

In connection with IT projects, software law infringements can also occur outside the contractual relationship between the client and the contractor, for example if the rights of third parties are violated. In this case, it is mainly a matter of asserting claims for injunctive relief and damages on the basis of a copyright and/or patent infringement (for example, by means of a warning letter). Or defending against corresponding claims.

Data disputes

Disputes are to be expected on a regular basis, especially when asserting rights of use to data. For example, because trade secrets worthy of protection stand in the way of data sharing from the perspective of the data owner. But ongoing contractual relationships, such as the use of databases or cloud services, also harbor potential for conflict.

Here, data law not only offers substantive regulations, but also establishes procedural rules. Thus, conflicts can be settled not (only) before the ordinary (civil) courts, but also before arbitration courts.

Last but not least, data rights can also be violated in a non-contractual context, for example through data theft. This can also lead to civil disputes. The law firm supports international clients in enforcing their rights in data and thereby in protecting data bases under German and EU law.

Arbitration

Many sofware licensing agreements and other IT project or data project contracts contain an arbitration clause. This means that the parties have the options or the obligation to bring their claims before an arbitration panel. This is supposed to avoid lengthy and costly litigation before the ordinary courts.

Such proceedings are offered under the arbitration rules of various organisations, for instance the International Cour of Arbitration of the International Chamber of Commerce (ICC), the World Intellectual Intellectual Property Organisation (WIPO) Arbitration Center, the Swiss Arbitration Centre or the German Arbitration Institute (DIS).

Proceedings before ordinary courts

Copyright infringements are regularly dealt with by ordinary courts, i.e. the civil courts of the state.

Unified Patent Court

Claims for infringements of European Patents and the EU Unitary Patent can be, in general, brought before the Unified Patent Court (UPC). This is a court system fully separated and independent from the ordinary courts system. We can represent you in proceedings before the UPC. Further information on the UPC system you can find here.