GERMANY Law and Practice Contributed by: Thomas Nägele, Steffen Henn, Anke Hofmann and Serpil Dilbaz, SZA Schilling, Zutt & Anschütz
2.5 Notices and Symbols There is no need for a trade mark owner to use a special symbol (eg, ®) to denote that a trade mark is registered or existing. 2.6 Related Rights Intellectual property rights are not mutually exclusive. In general, a trade mark might also be protected by other IP rights (eg, a copyright in the case of a very creative logo), provided that the respective protection requirements are met. Then, the scope of protection varies. Names of persons – whether real or fictitious, known or unknown, living or deceased – are eligible for trade mark protection. Whether a personal name is registered as a trade mark depends on the same criterion as for all other signs, namely whether the name has a distinc - tive character. 3. Copyright Ownership, Protection and Rights 3.1 Types of Copyrightable Works Section 2 CA encompasses a non-exclusive list of protected works, such as, inter alia: • literary works, such as written works, speech - es and computer programs; • musical works; • pantomimic works; • artistic works; • photographic works; • cinematographic works; and • illustrations of a scientific or technical nature. In addition to this non-exclusive list, German copyright law protects translations and other adaptations of a work, collective works and databases (see Section 3, 4 CA).
Industrial designs may be protected by copy - right law if the industrial designs are an individual creation by the author. 3.2 Essential Elements of Copyright Protection In order to be protectable, the work must be the author’s own intellectual creation. This is the case if the work reflects the author’s personal - ity and its free and creative choices. The work must not be fixed in a tangible medium and no copyright symbol (©) is necessary. 3.3 Copyright Authorship According to Section 7 CA, the author is the person who creates the work. The work must be an original product of a human being’s own intellectual effort (also called “personal touch”). German copyright law does not recognise the “work made for hire” doctrine. Even when an employee creates a work in the course of their employment, the company will not become the author of the copyright. Joint authorship arises when two or more indi - viduals collaboratively and substantially contrib - ute to the creation of a single work without their shares being separately exploitable. The right to publish and exploit the work then belongs to the co-authors jointly; changes to the work are only permitted with the consent of the co-authors. 3.4 Copyright Rights Copyright protects the author in their intellectual and personal relationships with the work and in respect of the use of the work. The CA divides the scope of copyright into three subsections: moral, exploitation and other rights of authors. In principle, all of them persist throughout the term of a copyright.
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