News

New Lectures at the Beginning of the Semester

With the beginning of the winter semester, the lawyers of Dorenz Ströll Rönneper & Partners have re-started their lectures and workshops at various universities. Lawyer Ströll is lecturing in the seminar for marketing and brand management on trademark rights at the University of Cologne. Lawyer Rönneper is lecturing at the University of Music in Cologne in the master´s degree in cultural management of CIAM on film and law. Lawyer Dorenz lectures on Economic and Private Law at the University of Applied Sciences of Dusseldorf for communication and multimedia management.

Federal Supreme Court decides on part of trademark "Volks" (People-)

In its verdict of April 2013, the Federal Supreme Court abolished the decision of the Higher Regional Court of Munich, which das dismissed the trademark infringement lawsuit of VW Group against the tabloid paper BILD and the moter vehicle workshops A.T.U. because of the use of, inter alia, the terms "Volks-Farbe" (People´s-Colour), "Volks-Spartarif" (People´s saving rate) and "Volks-Inspektion" (People´s inspection) and remanded the matter for further finding of tradmark infringement. Unlike the Higher Regional Court, the Supreme Court had not excluded a trademark infringement a priori, as to the use of the terms "Volks-Reifen" (People´s tires) or "Volks-Werkstatt" (People´s workshop), were to assume an economic or organisational connection of the defendeant to the plaintiff or if the distinctive character of the well-known brand "Volkswagen" were affected.