Contract law and Licensing

For businesses in the industries of e-commerce, media, entertainment & communication, luxury and consumer goods, aircraft industry and gaming, sports bets and the gambling sector represented by Dr. Andreas Leupold economic success is not only dependent on innovative ideas and a flexible market strategy but also on the drafting of contracts and license agreements with appropriate conditions necessary for the running business operations. The loss of intellectual property or product names that have been introduced to the market, as well as written warning letters of caution by competitors and unnecessary court proceedings rank among the largest hurdles in opening up new markets and customers for internationally operating businesses and groups of companies. For this reason obtaining legal advice as early as possible with respect to protecting against and defending industrial property rights also belongs today as much to business management with foresight as company-wise uniform contract management.

Due to the combination of his expertise and practical knowledge gained in IT law, Media & Entertainment law and Gaming/Sports bets and Gambling law, the legal representation in court for years for one of the largest auction platforms on the Internet and litigation representation for one of the world-players in the automobile world now for over 15 years, Dr. Andreas Leupold well knows the special challenges that license and sales and distribution contracts have to meet in different industries. The view across different industries resulting from this benefits his clients in the drafting and negotiation of license contracts of all kinds and also in litigation representation before court for defending against infringements of rights and against breaches of license contracts, as they, for example, take place by franchisees or other sales intermediaries and agents.

The practical knowledge that he has gained over the years from legally advising world-wide leading IT companies is of particular benefit in the drafting of end-user license agreements (EULA´s), project contracts, license agreements and sales and distribution contracts, OEM contracts for soft- and hardware, in granting exclusive and non-exclusive (simple) licenses for industrial property rights, software and hardware licenses, sole licenses, operating licenses, statutory licenses for creating private copies, in the conclusion of software license contracts – also for freeware, the granting of BSD-licenses, client access licenses (CAL), single and multiple licenses in the dual license system, in drafting license key contracts for the simplification of automatic software distribution, the granting and purchasing of volume, site, company, pay-per-use, software as a service (SaaS), token-based, open source, upgrade, downgrade, update, add on, cross-upgrade, concurrent user and media licenses for software stored on data media, open source software licenses, copyleft licenses and creative commons licenses, inlicensing and outlicensing of software and the conclusion of national and international technology transfer agreements. Dr. Andreas Leupold has 20 years of experience in licensing contracts, project contracts, research and development agreements, software license agreements, supply contracts, merchandizing license contracts and in the drafting of general terms and conditions for the sale and distribution of copyright- and/or patent-protected products. Dr. Andreas Leupold’s practical expertise from working together with international IT companies is of benefit to his clients and is also of benefit in the drafting of software and hardware leasing contracts, joint venture agreements, authorized dealer contracts, sales agreements, distribution agreements, marketing agreements, value added reseller (VAR) contracts and independent software vendor (ISV) contracts.

In view of the obligation of executive management of businesses to implement foresighted risk management, the compliance check offered by Dr. Andreas Leupold for the deployment of copyright-protected software in companies is just as important as sustainable license management and a regular check of under- or over-licensing within the framework of software asset management. In order to avoid cost-intensive relicensing or subsequent licensing, Dr. Andreas Leupold advises his clients also in questions of exhaustion of distribution rights and the deployment of used software.

With the use of copyright-protected works on the Internet and in the “classical“ media the rights to remuneration of the authors are generally enforced by collecting societies like VG Wort, the VGF and GEMA. If content is used without being checked then this can cause cost-intensive warning letters with cautions. Dr. Andreas Leupold supports companies that want to publicly distribute, sell or make available to the public in the licensing of the rights of use necessary for this.

Filming and literary purchase contracts, synchronization agreements, distribution contracts for copyright protected works regulate today the multimedia exploitation of rights granted with such in all possible sales channels. Due to his work for well-known companies from the film and television industries, Dr. Leupold also has at his disposal in this area sound practical experience and knowledge. Due to the progressive digitalization of media content and sales and distribution channels his knowledge gained over the years in IT law is particularly beneficial and facilitates the contractual legal securing and defending of innovative licensing and monetization models in a continually changing media landscape that offers new chances for opening up new markets and customer groups for established market participants and also for newcomers.