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Infringement proceedings

The right emanating from a registered IP right, i.e., the right to prohibit third parties to copy or to commercially utilize a protected invention or a trademark, is effective from the date of publication of a patent or trademark on.

Specifically, an effective patent permits its proprietor to prohibit third parties to
- produce
- offer
- put into circulation
- use the subject-matter of the patent, or
- import or own its subject-matter for the purposes mentioned above


or to apply or offer a method which is subject-matter of a patent, and to
- offer
- put into circulation
- use a product directly produced by the protected method, or to
- import or own a product directly produced by the protected method for the purposes mentioned above.
The infringer of a patented invention can be sued for injunctive relief, compensation and elimination of the goods as well as for rendering of accounts and providing information with respect to origin and channel of distribution of the goods infringing a patent.

In a procedural view, the claims of rendering of accounts and providing of information are advantageous in that no cost risks are involved in case of negative court decisions in subsequent instances. In practice, these claims, therefore, are often enforced already in the first instance, because the patent proprietor is able to obtain useful information related to his competitor. Claims emanating from the patent, for example, for injunctive relief or compensation etc. can be enforced by filing an action with the ordinary courts.

Publication of an unexamined patent application after 18 months from the application date on only provides a claim of an adequate indemnification wherein no claim exists at all, if the subject-matter of the application obviously is not patentable.