Practice Areas
Patent and Utility Model Prosecution, Opposition and Revocation, Patent and Utility Model Litigation, Employee Inventions, Unitary Patent and Unified Patent Court, Due Diligence and Freedom-to-Operate Analysis
Experience
Elard has a particular emphasis on the technical fields of engineering, including manufacturing and production technologies as well as automotive, material science, medical technology, diagnostic apparatuses and physics. Elard is regularly involved in interdisciplinary teams and, in particular, often cooperates with partners from the Biology & Biotechnology Department both for prosecution and opposition cases relating to inventions at the interface between mechanics/physics/engineering/IT and biology/biochemistry.
For his clients, he achieved numerous advantageous patent office and court decisions, including bespoke Federal Supreme Court decisions “Teilreflektierende Folie” (BGH X ZR 112/13) and “Wundbehandlungsvorrichtung” (BGH X ZR 161/12).
Elard provides clients with practical and strategic advice in all stages and matters of German, European and global patent portfolios. In addition to patent prosecution, Elard has extensive and valuable experience in providing opinion work and conducting due diligences as well as in opposition, cancellation, invalidation and patent infringement cases before the various authorities such as the German and European Patent Office, the Federal German Patent Court, the Federal Supreme Court as well as various Lower and Upper District Courts.