Bio

Prof. Christian Klawitter’s legal practice encompasses the entire range of intellectual property law, with emphases on competition and trademarks, design and copyright, as well as licensing and distribution (antitrust). Mr. Klawitter is a founding partner of KNPZ Rechtsanwälte. Prior to that, he was a partner of Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer. Mr. Klawitter studied law at the University of Hamburg, where he worked as a research assistant from 1981 to 1984. Since 1995, he has held a position teaching intellectual property and copyright at the University of Duisberg-Essen, which appointed him as a honorary professor in 2006. Since 2009, he has held a position at the Humboldt University of Berlin teaching licensing agreements in the LL.M. program for intellectual property and media law. Mr. Klawitter has published numerous specialized contributions and articles and is the attorney of choice for questions of design protection. He is co-author of the third edition of the prestigious Carl Heynmann publisher’s recently appearing Handbuch des Fachanwalts Gewerblicher Rechtsschutz (Handbook of intellectual property for the expert attorney) in which he comprehensively comments on national and European design law. His book Lizenzverträge und Kartellrecht (License agreements and antitrust law) appeared in its second edition in 2015. Prof. Christian Klawitter is past president and member of the advisory board of the German group of the Licensing Executives Society (LES). In 2004, he was appointed to the specialist committee for design law of the German Association for the Protection of Intellectual Property (GRUR), in which, among other matters, statements concerning draft legislation as well as trailblazing decisions of the European Court of Justice (EuGH) are worked out in the area of design law. In addition, he is a member of the specialized copyright committee of the German Cultural Council. According to the “best lawyers” ranking appearing annually in the Handelsblatt business newspaper, Mr. Klawitter numbers among the best commercial attorneys in Germany. The industry journal Wirtschaftswoche has cited him in their list of the top 25 attorneys in trademark law. Alongside his professional commitments, he is particularly interested in contemporary art. He is an active member of the ACC Working Group Corporate Collecting which is part of the Kulturkreis der deutschen Wirtschaft (Association of Arts and Culture of the German Economy), founding trustee and advisory board member of the Else-Heiliger-Fonds, a private initiative, associated with the renowned Konrad-Adenauer-Foundation, for the promotion of young promising artists, and chairman of the board of the Overbeck-Gesellschaft, the art association of his hometown Lübeck, which celebrated its 100th anniversary in 2018.