On 1 September 2008, the Enforcement Act ("Act") will enter into force in Germany. The most important innovations introduced by the Act are an extended right of information, a right to obtain disclosure of i.a. documents in the control of the alleged infringer of an intellectual property right, a right to recall infringing products from the channels of commerce and aright to publication of judicial decisions.

The "memorisation" of training data and reproduction of song lyrics in ChatGPT outputs has been found to infringe copyright, by the Munich I Regional Court, in a case that GEMA the collecting society representing...

In a major decision dated December 19, 2025 (R 2248/2019-G), the Grand Board of Appeal of the EUIPO ruled that the word mark “GEORGE ORWELL” cannot be registered as an EU trade mark (EUTM) for goods and services such as books, films, recorded media, and entertainment, cultural, and educational services. The decision provides important clarification on the registrability of famous persons’ names in cases where such names may be perceived by the relevant public as describing the content or subject matter of the goods and services concerned, rather than their commercial origin.

Over the course of the month of May, the German Federal Supreme Court rendered two important decisions in the area of internet law, shedding some light on issues that had remained unclear and widely discussed for some time.

In recent years, German publishing and media houses have struggled to serve their readership with advertisements ("web banners").

The German Federal Court of Justice has delivered a landmark ruling in the decades-long "Metall auf Metall" litigation, applying the EU Court of Justice's framework to determine whether unauthorized music sampling can qualify as lawful "pastiche" under copyright law. The decision examines whether a two-second rhythm sequence from Kraftwerk's 1977 recording, used repeatedly in a 1997 song, constitutes permissible artistic dialogue or copyright infringement.

The recent U.S. elections have concluded, and Germany is also preparing for new ballots. Politicians and parties often use music at their election rallies to create an emotional atmosphere supporting their campaigns.

Undoubtedly one of the most exciting technological developments of recent years, whose effects on the conventional value creation chain is hard to predict...

The manufacturer of a product and his exclusive distribution partner do not require registered industrial property rights in order to protect the product against imitations. In Germany

One of the requirements will be to enter into a joint-controller data protection agreement with Facebook.

The medial excitement surrounding electronic sports, the competition between human players in computer games, has not only been continuing for some time now, but is also...

On 8 May 2025, Advocate General Szpunar issued his long-awaited Opinion in two pending referrals to the Court of Justice of the European Union in the Mio and USM Haller/konektra cases...

The Regional Court of Düsseldorf (LG Düsseldorf) has, as far as is known, become the first German court to apply the partly new principles established by the European Court of Justice (ECJ)...

As explained in our previous blog post, the AI Act generally relies on a risk-based approach. This means that different requirements apply depending on the level of risk. GPAI models, however, are a separate category.

Is the creation of a dataset that can be used to train generative AI systems (GenAI systems) an infringement of copyright? According to a recent decision of a German court...

The problem has been clearly identified and the figures are staggering: in 2002 alone, 85 million counterfeit articles were seized by the customs authority at the European Union's external border, and the first half of 2003, a further 50 million were seized. These figures are only the tip of the iceberg, as only a small fraction of the illicit goods are likely to have been apprehended.

On June 7, 2019, the highly controversial EU Copyright Directive ("Directive") came into force, requiring EU Member States to transpose its provisions into national law by June 7, 2021.

Après les polémiques sur les images « inspirées » du studio Ghibli, c'est désormais les paroles de chansons qui s'invitent au cœur du débat sur l'intelligence artificielle.

Content uploaded on to the Internet by users (e.g., music, videos, literature, photos, streaming of live events such as gaming and concerts – so-called "user-generated content") has spawned a series of legal cases in Europe.

Back in April 2021, the European Commission provided a draft regulation laying down harmonized rules on artificial intelligence (AI Act) aimed at safeguarding fundamental EU rights and user safety...