Dr. Dirk Bröcher advises German and international clients in the areas of patents, utility models, trademarks, designs and SPCs in both litigation and prosecution. His technical fields of expertise are chemistry, pharmaceuticals and life science including polymer chemistry, process engineering, technical chemistry, physical chemistry, agrochemistry, biotechnology and medical devices. A special focus of his practice is the handling of national and international patent litigation, opposition, nullity and appeal proceedings. Dirk represents small and medium-sized companies located in Germany as well as globally leading companies and corporations from Europe, Japan, Korea, China and USA.

Dr. Dirk Bröcher studied general chemistry in Bonn and Münster. In 1997, he was awarded the degree of “Diplom-Chemiker” for a thesis in the field of preparative synthesis of natural compounds and completed his doctoral thesis on the synthesis of fullerenes in 2001 at the Technical University Karlsruhe.

Dirk has been working in IP since 2001, at first in two well-reputed firms in Essen and Düsseldorf.

He spent a part of his training at the patent litigation chamber of the Regional Court Düsseldorf, at the German Patent and Trademark Office as well as at the Federal Patent Court in Munich. Upon completion of his studies in general law for patent attorneys at the FernUniversität Hagen, he qualified as a German Patent Attorney. In the same year, he was also admitted to act as a representative before the European Patent Office.

In order to become acquainted with the aims and structures of business activities of large companies, Dirk became a corporate patent attorney with an internationally operating company in the agrochemical industry operating.   Dirk has been working in our firm since 2006. He became a partner in 2009.

He is the co-author of several articles on organometallic chemistry and the synthesis of fullerene structures.

The technical focus of Dirk’s work includes all fields of general chemistry, analytics, polymer chemistry, pharmaceutical and agrochemical industry, food chemistry, catalyst technology and technical chemistry.

Dirk represents domestic and international firms in all areas of IP, in particular, patent, utility model, trademark and design model law. His focal point with regard to patent law is the representation in granting and opposition procedures before the German and European Patent Offices, nullity actions and the preparation of freedom-to-operate opinions.

Another focus is the strategic counseling of companies, including portfolio management, providing expert opinions on infringements and legal validity, counseling with regard to the conclusion of license agreements, reviewing issues relating to patent law in takeovers or business separation transactions, as well as counseling in issues relating to the law of employees’ inventions.

Furthermore, Dirk advises clients in the filed of Supplemental Protection Certificates (SPC) for drugs and plant protection materials, parallel imports (in particular of drugs) and border confiscation.

He completed his studies in “European Intellectual Property Law” (LL.M.) in 2012, dealing, among other things, with European and International Civil Procedure Laws as well as patent infringement and nullity actions in England and France. With regard to the unitary patent system, which will be implemented shortly, he also acquired a diploma in European Patent Litigation (“D.U. Contentieux des Brevets en Europe”) at the University of Strasbourg in 2015.

Dirk is lecturer at the Heinrich-Heine-University Düsseldorf in the M.Sc. program Industrial Pharmacy, module Intellectual Properties, and speaker at the FORUM Institut for the seminar series „EPO Case Law Update“.

He is married with two children.