You are a managing director in Germany and are provided with information about a business set up by one of your departments. You assume your management responsibility in relation to the project. Could you become liable to prosecution, should the business be used to commit trade mark infringement? The following copyright case is an example of the legal situation in German trade mark law.

Are products bearing your brand being sold on the market without your knowledge as to their origin? Consider whether there might be criminal liability for the unauthorised import of branded goods; if unsure, seek specialist advice.

Do not jeopardise your brand by using it incorrectly on the packaging.

Sellers offer counterfeits on your employer's platform. As a manager of this platform, can you be prosecuted for brand violation?

After a user enters a trade mark into Google’s search engine, they are directed to a results list containing, among other things, an online marketplace on which third parties sell competing products. Does this programming of the online marketplace infringe the trade mark?

You might consider using Google Ads for your Internet shop. But a project such as this needs to be thought through carefully.

Under what conditions can simple figurative signs be protected as trade marks? Even 12,000 pages of evidence of use were insufficient to prove the registrability of an additional adidas three-stripe mark in this important case.

Your trade marks should not, if possible, share similarities with earlier signs. The Court of Justice of the European Union now has set a high benchmark in this regard. They must be strictly observed, otherwise your trade marks may be in great danger and you may inadvertently become an infringer who will be obliged to pay damages.

If you enter your brand on amazon, also appears a variety of third-party products. This is what happened when you entered the Ortlieb brand. Is your brand being used to illegally advertise for others?

Who wouldn’t want a simple logo for their company that also best embodies the company’s goodwill while being recognised everywhere? adidas is the owner of such a logo. You know, the three stripes. However, adidas has failed in its attempt to extend the three-stripe protection.