Preview: Judge Brückner-Hofmann interview
Managing IP is part of the Delinian Group, Delinian Limited, 4 Bouverie Street, London, EC4Y 8AX, Registered in England & Wales, Company number 00954730
Copyright © Delinian Limited and its affiliated companies 2024

Accessibility | Terms of Use | Privacy Policy | Modern Slavery Statement

Preview: Judge Brückner-Hofmann interview

Johanna Brückner-Hofmann

The Düsseldorf District Court judge admits being upset when an appeal judgment is badly argued and discusses the 1,900% increase in design cases at her court

“There are a few cases in which the appeal judgment, in my view, is clearly wrong or badly argued,” says Johanna Brückner-Hofmann in reference to her decisions being overruled but there being no convincing reason in the findings.

Brückner-Hofmann, who chairs a three-member panel specialising in design and unfair competition law at the Düsseldorf District Court (Landgericht) in Germany, admits, however, that this is a rare occurrence. 

She and her co-panellists hear around 100 design cases and between 120 and 150 unfair competition disputes every year. In her early days as a judge, however, Brückner-Hofmann would hear no more than five design cases per year – 1,900% less than today’s 100. 

In this exclusive interview with the judge, who has worked at the court since 1995, you can discover:

Why her workload has increased and what her most significant cases have been;

How she views the appeal process, especially when her cases are overturned;

What she thinks about diversity and recruitment in the German judiciary;

How she handles working part-time in an increasingly demanding role;

What annoys her in court; and

How the German system differs to that of other countries.

The full interview will be published tomorrow, August 28. It will be the fourth in our series of judge interviews following our discussions with Mr Justice Arnold and the late Mr Justice Carr of the England and Wales High Court, and Lord Kitchin of the UK Supreme Court. 







more from across site and ros bottom lb

More from across our site

As Australia’s Qantm IP leans towards being acquired by a private equity company, sources discuss what it could mean for IP firms
Law firms that are conscious of their role in society are more likely to win work, according to a survey of over 23,000 in-house professionals
Pham Nghiem Xuan Bac, managing partner of Vision & Associates, discusses opportunities created by the US-China rift as well as profitability issues facing IP practices
Douglas Leite and two of his colleagues were intrigued by Bhering Advogados’s mission to grow its patent litigation practice
Each week Managing IP speaks to a different IP practitioner about their life and career
Counsel explain how pricing flexibility, patent agents and being business partners can help them maintain profitable patent prosecution practices
We provide a rundown of Managing IP’s news and analysis from the week, and review what’s been happening elsewhere in IP
Speakers at an INTA event weighed in on why firms should create AI use policies and how they stay on top of the latest developments
The England and Wales Court of Appeal backed Lidl in its trademark dispute with Tesco, but we should pay more attention to how we rule on first-instance decisions
Richard Kempner, partner at Haseltine Lake Kempner, discusses the ‘remarkable’ comments from judges, despite the court finding against his client Tesco on the bulk of issues
Gift this article