Vossius & Partner

Physics, Engineering & IT

PARTNER, Patent Attorney, European Patent Attorney

Elard Freiherr Schenck zu Schweinsberg joined VOSSIUS after his training to become a reserve officer and after having completed his master studies in mechanical engineering at the RWTH Aachen and has been partner of the firm since 2007. Elard has a particular emphasis on the technical fields of engineering, including manufacturing and production technologies as well as automotive, material science, medical technology, diagnostic apparatuses and physics. Elard is regularly involved in interdisciplinary teams and, in particular, often cooperates with partners from the Biology & Biotechnology Department both for prosecution and opposition cases relating to inventions at the interface between mechanics/physics/engineering/IT and biology/biochemistry.

For his clients, he achieved numerous advantageous patent office and court decisions, including bespoke Federal Supreme Court decisions “Teilreflektierende Folie” (BGH X ZR 112/13) and “Wundbehandlungsvorrichtung” (BGH X ZR 161/12). Elard is regularly ranked and recommended in various renowned publications, including Chambers Global, JUVE and IAM Patent. In 2020 he is ranked a “IAM global leader” by IAM and as “TOP Attorney in Patent Law” by the German periodical WirtschaftsWoche.

Elard provides clients with practical and strategic advice in all stages and matters of German, European and global patent portfolios. In addition to patent prosecution, Elard has extensive and valuable experience in providing opinion work and conducting due diligences as well as in opposition, cancellation, invalidation and patent infringement cases before the various authorities such as the German and European Patent Office, the Federal German Patent Court, the Federal Supreme Court as well as various Lower and Upper District Courts. He holds lectures, in Germany and abroad, on intellectual property protection and advises start-ups, universities, SME's as well as globally leading companies in IP matters. Elard was a member in the patent attorneys' examining commission for many years.