Dr. Stefan Maaßen, LL.M.

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Partner

Intellectual Property (esp. Trademarks, Domains and Unfair Competition), Trade Secrets, Copyright

„Very careful and proactive“ (Competitor, JUVE Handbuch 2013/2014)

„Very professional and objective“ (Competitor, JUVE Handbuch 2014/2015)

„Good cooperation“ (Client, JUVE Handbuch 2016/2017)

Intellectual property lawyer most recommended by in-house counsel (Kanzleimonitor 2018/2019)

„Very good litigator, expert in Trade Secret law“ (Competitor, JUVE Handbuch 2019/2020)

Telephone: +49 (0) 221 65065-231
Fax: +49 (0) 221 65065-232
E-Mail: stefan.maassen@loschelder.de
vCard: vCard of Dr. Stefan Maaßen

Legal training:
Studies in Cologne, Paris I (Panthéon-Sorbonne) and Heidelberg,
University Assistant,
LL.M. 1999,
Dr. jur. 2006

Call to the Bar: 2005
Languages: English, French

Dr. Stefan Maaßen, LL.M., provides legal advice and client counselling on all aspects of intellectual property law and related areas. Dr. Maaßen has extensive experience in litigating cases of unfair competition and theft of trade secrets as well as infringement of trademarks and business identifiers or designs. He also regularly acts in cases of domain grabbing and abuse on national level or in UDRP procedures.

In recent years, Stefan Maaßen has been acting in a number of legal disputes that were, from the client’s perspective, of considerable and some-times vital importance. This included the following representative selection of proceedings:

Employees of a medium-sized manufacturer of specialist machinery had copied a large number of drawings and other trade secrets from the server before leaving the company and founded their own company offering copies of those machines. Due to the difficult evidence situation, we advised the client to initiate criminal proceedings and supported the client in its position as a joint plaintiff. After several searches had been carried out by the police, we obtained judgments against the perpetrators for injunctive relief and damage compensation for infringement of trade secrets as well as for patent and copyright infringement. Furthermore, we successfully enforced substantial amount of money in damages.
A leading global consumer goods manufacturer launched a new type of cleaning agent on the market. The product had a totally different and unique design and was a huge com-mercial success. After some time, our client was confronted with a growing number of counterfeits and the market share obtained was put in danger. We prevented the distribu-tion of numerous imitations by injunction proceedings based on unfair competition law and secured the market success of the original.
For years, Asian companies offered copies of hand tools on a large scale at trade fairs in Germany. We regularly assisted the original manufacturer’s representatives in addressing infringers at trade fairs and conducted numerous injunction proceedings as well as sei-zures. We also have initiated main action proceedings against several infringers and their managers to be held liable in person. In the course of one of these proceedings the key question was clarified that a seizure order to secure future claims for reimbursement of costs can also be issued prior to service of the statement of claim (Cologne Appeals Court case no. 6 W 42/13). This makes it significantly easier to take action against notorious in-fringers.
Two companies systematically re-imported medicines destined and labeled for the Austrian market into Germany, using the original manufacturer's central pharmaceutical number (Pharmacist Interface Product Code, UK; National Drug Code, USA). The result was that the original manufacturer had to pay the mandatory discount under German social security law in accordance with Section 130a SGB V (Social Security Code V) instead of the parallel importer. We clarified fundamental trademark, social and pharmaceutical law issues re-garding the use of the central pharmaceutical number and enforced rights of information and claims for damages for the original manufacturer against all parties involved at the different levels of trade (Braunschweig Appeals Court case no. 2 U 54/15).
A healthcare company discovered that a former employee offered an imitation of a medical device that could only work using copied trade secrets. We prevented the further distribution of the copied medical device by means of a preliminary injunction. In the course of inspection proceedings, we have also established that trade secrets of the company were stored on the opposite party’s servers where they were used to a large extent by different employees.

Furthermore, Stefan Maaßen has also written numerous articles and book contributions on competition and trademark law as well as on the trade secret law. For many years, he works as a lecturer at the German Lawyers' Academy (a major CLE provider), in particular on procedural aspects of unfair competition law. In addition, Stefan Maaßen regularly publishes his column on current IP issues in "Werbeartikel-Nachrichten", a German magazine, and holds a lectureship in unfair competition and antitrust law at the University of Applied Science Aachen.

Advisors / Dr. Maaßen

Advisors /
Dr. Maaßen