The Center for Intellectual Property Law at the Law Faculty of the Heinrich-Heine-University in Düsseldorf promotes research and teaching as well as the exchange of knowledge in the fields of industrial property, copyright and business law.
The Center’s objective is the pragmatic research and study of the law of new technologies, especially with regard to the protection and exploitation of inventions. Research currently focuses on the laws relating to biotechnology, inventions made at universities, the valuation of intellectual property rights and international intellectual property law.
In dialogue with the legal profession, corporate practitioners and the financial sector, the aim is to create a forum for entrepreneurs and inventors. The forum serves as a platform for the realization of practice-oriented and interdisciplinary research projects and project assistance. The Center strives to facilitate the exchange of expertise and experience.
The Center’s activity is characterized by academic conferences, as well as lectures and discussion panels. Since 2001, each spring, the Center has hosted the “Düsseldorfer Patentrechtstage” (Düsseldorf Patent Law Conference). This conference, a hallmark of the technology region North Rhine-Westphalia, is devoted to exploring current issues in patent law and related fields of law.
In addition, with the series of lectures and discussion forums “Werkstattgespräche auf Mickeln”, the Center provides a platform for dialogue with respect to current intellectual property and business law issues. The working group “arbeitskreis patentrecht universität Düsseldorf (apud)” discusses patent law issues on an interdisciplinary basis.
The interested public further has the possibility to use the online research facilities of the VAMP database – “Virtuelles Archiv für Marken- und Patentrecht” (virtual archive for trade mark and patent law). Among other contents, VAMP contains the “Düsseldorf judgments”, a collection of all decisions of the Regional Court and the Higher Regional Court of Düsseldorf in patent cases.
In addition, the Center for Intellectual Property Law supports the annual two semester “Intellectual Property” Masters degree program offered by the Faculty of Law and beginning each winter semester. The courses of this graduate program, aimed at qualified graduates and young practitioners, are taught by University faculty members and senior practitioners. The graduates receive the academic title “LL.M. (Gewerblicher Rechtsschutz)”. The Center especially seeks to assist students to enter practice in this field subsequent to completion.
The Center is supported by two Chairs of the Faculty of Law of the Heinrich-Heine-University in Düsseldorf. The chair for Civil Law and Intellectual Property (Prof. Dr. Jan Busche) is in charge of the executive. The “business law” field is supervised by the chair for Civil Law, Commercial and Business Law (Prof. Dr. Ulrich Noack).
Please note that our Masters degree program is taught in german.