Zeuner & Summerer |

We advise you to help you shape your opinion.

Ideas often need to grow a bit more. Then we put our legal knowledge and our experience to work. We research prior art, availability or the design corpus. We tell you what options are available for protecting your rights so you can select the best approach.

Wir beraten Sie, um Sie bei Ihrer Meinungsbildung zu unterstützen.

Ideen müssen oft noch wachsen. Dann bringen wir unser rechtliches Wissen und unsere Erfahrung mit ein. Wir recherchieren nach dem Stand der Technik, der Verfügbarkeit oder dem Formenschatz. Wir stellen Ihnen die Möglichkeiten des Schutzes Ihrer Rechte vor, damit Sie die optimale Vorgehensweise auswählen können.

We search for patents or trademarks that conflict with your product idea to enable you to assess the market.

We look at the prior art, the existing design shapes or the availability of the trademark relating to your innovation. Any application for protective rights must be preceded by an unbiased assessment of the current protective right situation, as that is the only way to evaluate chances and risks of an application as objectively as possible.

We apply for patent, trademark or design protection for your invention, sign or design.

Our submissions are based not only on years of experience with the national and international patent offices, but also on a solid background in technology, science and law.

We prepare a patent application and bring to grant.

We record your inventive idea and support it throughout the grant procedure with additional arguments to substantiate its patentability. As patent attorneys, we defend your idea before the German Patent and Trade Mark Office or the European Patent Office.

We calculate the costs for you so you can plan and decide.

The affordability of creating or expanding your IP portfolio must be assessed in advance. We estimate the costs for you and present the options so you can make your business decision.

We ensure that your trademark or design idea gets registered, making it stronger.

In the event that the DPMA, EUIPO, WIPO or the national IP authorities in other states raise objections, we argue against them to achieve the recordal in the register. This is important because, in legal disputes, the validity of registered trademarks and designs is presumed, and only registered trademarks and designs can be licensed.

We draft contracts to allow you to capitalize on your intellectual property rights.

To financially exploit your rights, you need legally secure contracts governing their licensing, usage or sale. We set out what you want in writing. Contracts with third parties for conceptual design, research and development must also be drawn up to benefit you. And if older conflicting third-party rights are discovered in a preliminary search, we draft a settlement or coexistence agreement or regulate the participating interests contractually.

We monitor your protective rights to ensure that they are not infringed.

Our work doesn’t end when your intellectual property rights are registered. These rights have to be maintained. We make sure that any change of owner or address is registered. We pay the renewal fees in a timely manner and inform you of your use obligations. But we also monitor the markets and registers and explain your options for taking action against newer protective rights, as newer rights that you tolerate or that aren’t exercised can also limit or weaken the scope of protection of your rights. To strengthen your protective rights, they must be used to actively pursue these newer rights.

We assess your protective rights by comparing them with others.

Prior to acquiring or purchasing companies or their assets, the value of their protective rights must be determined and classified. We assist you with the legal assessment of the IP portfolio through due diligence and pre-acquisition research to enable you to evaluate the deal.

We obtain global protection for your idea.

We represent you before the German and European authorities, such as the European Patent Office, the European Union Intellectual Property Office and the World Intellectual Property Organization, as well as directly before the British, French, BENELUX and Austrian IP authorities. In other economic regions, we rely on a network of experienced colleagues in the relevant locations to ensure optimum protection there. Since translation requirements and other necessary formalities often make foreign applications quite costly, we constantly strive to carefully weigh the costs and benefits to enable you to make a sound decision.

We attack interfering third-party protective rights for you.

Interfering patents, trademarks or designs can often be canceled or reduced to an innocuous scope of protection at little cost by promptly giving notice of opposition with the German Patent and Trade Mark Office, the European Patent Office or the European Union Intellectual Property Office. Any wrongly obtained third-party legal positions can also be redressed later through nullity proceedings. Just as we strongly represent your interests in dealings with third parties, we explain the opportunities and threats of an attack in all of their nuance to you.

Dipl.-Phys.

Dr. Stefan Zeuner

Patentanwalt
European Patent Attorney
European Trademark and
Design Attorney

Legal background

Admitted as a Patentanwalt to the German Patent and Trademark Office and to the German Patent Court
Professional representative before the European Patent Office
Professional representative before the EUIPO
Active in the field of intellectual property since 1997

Scientific background

Physics Studies in Regensburg and Boulder, Colorado, USA, Dipl.-Phys. 1992
Doctoral Studies at the University of Regensburg:
Demonstration of a novel thermoelectric effect in high-Tc superconducting films. Development and design of a fast broadband laser detector based on symmetry reduced high-Tc films – Doctorate as Dr. rer. nat. 1994
Visiting scientist at the Center for Free Electron Laser Studies of the University of California, Santa Barbara, USA, for two years:
Nonlinear dynamics in semiconductor nanostructures: photon-assisted quantum transport and dynamic localization in GaAs/AlGaAs semiconductor superlattices subject to intense THz fields.

Technical focus

Document Security
Security applications
Physical Technology, Optics and Laser Technology
Printing Technology
Information and Communication Technology
Semiconductor Technology, including Process Technology
Materials Science
Medical Technology

Dipl.-Phys.

Christian Summerer

Patentanwalt
European Patent Attorney
European Trademark and
Design Attorney

Legal background

Patent Attorney admitted to the German Patent and Trademark Office and to the German Patent Court
Professional representative before the European Patent Office
Professional representative before the EUIPO
Active in the field of intellectual property since 2000

Scientific background

Dipl.-Phys (equiv. to MSc), Physics Department, Technical University of Munich (1995),  Diplom-Thesis: Frequency stabilization of a diode laser
Development Engineer in the field of Electro-Optics at Burleigh Instruments Inc., Rochester, New York, USA (1995 – 1996) Development of optical spectrum analyzer based on FFT-Technology.
Development Engineer in Semiconductor Industry at Siemens Inc. / Infineon Technologies Inc., East Fishkill, New York, USA (1997 – 2000) Part of DRAM Development Alliance between IBM, Siemens/Infineon and Toshiba for development of 256 MBit and 1 GBit DRAM chips; focus on Lithography process engineering and Lithography tools.
Development Engineer in Semiconductor Industry at Siemens Inc. / Infineon Technologies Inc., East Fishkill, New York, USA (1997 – 2000)  Part of DRAM Development Alliance between IBM, Siemens/Infineon and Toshiba for development of 256 MBit and 1 GBit DRAM chips; focus on Lithography process engineering and Lithography tools.

Technical focus

Optics
Semiconductor Technology
Medical Technology
Electro-Optics
General Physics, including Mechanics

We mourn the loss of our partner

Michael Stütz

Attorney -at-Law
Bar Approved Specialist in Intellectual Property Law

who passed away unexpectedly in November 2025.

With Michael Stütz, our firm has lost a highly valued partner, a trusted colleague, and a dear friend. For many years, he dedicated himself with great commitment and personal devotion to the interests of his clients as well as to the growth and collegial spirit of our firm.

We will honor his memory and remember him with great respect.

Zeuner & Summerer

All of IP

Zeuner & Summerer

All of IP

Patentanwälte – European Patent Attorneys
European Trademark and Design Attorneys

What we do

advise

search

apply

patent

calculate

register

draft contracts

monitor

assess

internationalize

attack

Who we are

Dr. Stefan Zeuner

Christian Summerer

Michael Stütz
(up to 2025)

Useful Links

Patent offices and supranational organizations

Patent searches

Trade mark searches

Design searches

Contact

Nußbaumstraße 8
80336 München
Germany

Fon: +49(0)89 24 24 49 90
Fax: +49(0)89 24 24 49 91
Email: mail@zpat.eu

Legal notice

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