Data protection declaration

1. Name and contact data of those responsible for the processing as well as of the company data protection officer

This data protection information applies to the data processing by:

Company responsible:

Bockhorni & Brüntjen Patent- und Rechtsanwälte (im Folgenden: Bockhorni & Brüntjen), Elsenheimerstraße 49,
D-80687 Munich,
Germany
Email: mail@patguard.de
Telefon: +49 (0)89 745541-0
Fax: +49 (0)89 745541-55

The company data protection officer of Bockhorni & Brüntjen can be reached at the above-mentioned address, to the attention of Mr. Klaus-Dieter Mohr, or at dm@patguard.de.

2. Collection and storage of personal data as well as kind and purpose of its use

a) When visiting the website

When visiting our website http://www.patguard.de/eng, information will automatically be sent to the server of our website through the browser which is used by your end device. This information is temporarily stored in a so-called log file. The following information is collected without your interaction and is stored until the automated deletion:

> IP address of the requesting computer,
> Date and time of the visit,
> Name and URL of the accessed data,
> Website from which the access is carried out (referrer URL)
Used browser and, if applicable, the operating system of your computer as well as the name of your access provider.

We use the mentioned data for the following purposes:

> guaranteeing a smooth connection establishment of the website,
> guaranteeing a comfortable use of our website,
> evaluating the system security and stability, as well as for further administrative purposes

The legal ground for the data processing is article 6, par. 1, sentence 1, lit. f German General Data Protection Regulation. Our justified interest results from the above-mentioned purposes for the data collection. Under no circumstances will we use the collected data for the purpose of drawing any conclusions to you as a person.

We furthermore use cookies and analyzing services when our website is visited. More detailed information in this regard is provided under points 4 and 5 of this data protection declaration.

b) When subscribing to our newsletter

We use your email address for regularly sending you our newsletter, provided you have expressively agreed to this according to article 6, par. 1, sentence 1, lit. a German General Data Protection Regulation. For receiving the newsletter, it is sufficient to provide an email address.

It is possible to unsubscribe from our newsletter at any time. Please send us your request to be unsubscribed to mail@patguard.de by email at any time.
 

3. Transmission of data

Your personal data is not transmitted to third parties other than for the following reasons:

We transmit your personal data to third parties only when:

  • you have given us your express agreement according to article 6, par. 1, sentence 1, lit. a German General Data Protection Regulation,
  • when the transmission according to article 6, par. 1, sentence 1, lit. f German General Data Protection Regulation is necessary for asserting, exercising or defending legal claims and when there is no reason to assume that you have a predominant legitimate interest in your data not being transmitted
  • for the case that there is a legal obligation to the transmission according to article 6, par. 1, sentence 1, lit. c German General Data Protection Regulation, as well as
  • it is permitted by law and necessary according to article 6, par. 1, sentence 1, lit. b German General Data Protection Regulation for processing the contractual relationships.

4. Cookies

We use cookies on our website. These are small data which are automatically generated by your browser and stored on your end device (laptop, tablet, smartphone, etc.) when you visit our website. Cookies do not cause any damage on your end device, do not contain any viruses, trojans, or any other damaging software.

Information is stored in the cookie which result in each case in connection with the specifically used end device. This does not mean, however, that we directly gain knowledge about your identity by that.

On the one hand, the use of cookies serves for making the use of our offer more pleasant for you. For this purpose, we use so-called session cookies in order to recognize that you have visited individual pages of our website. Those cookies are deleted automatically when our website is left.

Furthermore, we also use temporary cookies in order to optimize the user-friendliness. Those cookies are stored on your end device for a certain fixed period of time. When you visit our website again in order to use our services, it will automatically be recognized that you already visited us and which entries and settings you made, so that you do not have to enter them again.

On the other hand, we use cookies in order to statistically record the use of our website and evaluate it in order to optimize our offer for you (see no. 5). These cookies allow us to automatically recognize that you already visited us when our website is visited anew. These cookies are deleted automatically after a respectively fixed period of time.

The data which is processed by cookies is necessary for the mentioned purposes in order to guarantee our and third parties’ justified interests according to article 6, par. 1, sentence 1, lit. f German General Data Protection Regulation.

Most browsers accept cookies automatically. You can, however, configure your browser such that no cookies are stored on your computer or that you will always receive a note before a new cookie is generated. The complete deactivation of cookies may, however, have the result that you cannot use all functions of our website.

5. Analyzing tools

Tracking-Tools

The following tracking measures which are used by us are carried out based on article 6, par. 1, sentence 1, lit. f German General Data Protection Regulation. With the tracking measures that are used, we want to guarantee a needs-based design and the ongoing optimization of our website. On the other hand, we use the tracking measures in order to statistically record the use of our website and to evaluate it for the purpose of optimizing our offer for you. These interests are to be regarded justified within the meaning of the above-mentioned regulation.

The respective data processing purposes and data categories can be taken from the corresponding tracking tools.

a) Google Adwords Conversion Tracking

In order to statistically record the use of our website and to evaluate it for the purpose of optimizing our website for you, we furthermore use Google Conversion Tracking. That means that Google Adwords sets a cookie (see no. 4) on your computer, provided you accessed our website through a google advertisement.

These cookies remain valid for 30 days and do not serve for the personal identification. When the user visits certain pages of the website of the Adwords customer and the cookie has not yet expired, Google and the customer can recognize that the user has clicked on the ad and was then forwarded to this site.

Every Adwords customer receives a different cookie. Cookies can therefore not be tracked by the websites of Adwords customers. The information which is collected with the help of the conversion cookie serve to generate conversion statistics for Adwords customers who have decided for the conversion tracking. The Adwords customers are informed of the total number of users who have clicked their ad and have been forwarded to a site which is equipped with a conversion tracking tag. They do, however, not receive any information with which users can be personally identified.

Every Adwords customer receives a different cookie. Cookies can therefore not be tracked by the websites of Adwords customers. The information which is collected with the help of the conversion cookie serve to generate conversion statistics for Adwords customers who have decided for the conversion tracking. The Adwords customers are informed of the total number of users who have clicked their ad and have been forwarded to a site which is equipped with a conversion tracking tag. They do, however, not receive any information with which users can be personally identified. (https://services.google.com/sitestats/de.html).

b) Matomo

We use the open source software Matomo for analyzing and statistically evaluating the use of the website. For this purpose, cookies are used (see no. 4). The information which is generated by the cookie about the use of the website is sent to our server and summarized in pseudonymous user profiles. The information is used in order to evaluate the use of the website and to enable a needs-based design of our website. No information is transmitted to third parties.

The IP address is under no circumstances brought into connection with other data relating to the user. The IP addresses are anonymized so that an allocation is impossible (IP masking).

Your visit of this website is currently recorded by the Matomo web analysis. Please click here (https://matomo.org/docs/privacy/) so that your visit is no longer recorded.

6. Social Media Plug-ins

Based on article 6, par. 1, sentence 1, lit. f German General Data Protection Regulation, we use social plug-ins of the social networks Facebook, Twitter and Instagram in order to raise awareness of our law firm. The advertising purpose behind that is to be considered as a justified interest within the meaning of the German General Data Protection Regulation. The responsibility for the data protection compliant operation is to be guaranteed by the respective provider. The integration of these plug-ins by use is carried out by means of the so-called two click method in order to protect the visitors of our website at the best possible rate.

a) Facebook

Social media plug-ins of Facebook are used on our website in order to make their use more personal. For that purpose, we use the “LIKE” or “SHARE” button. This is an offer by Facebook.

When you visit a page of our web presence which contains such a plug-in, your browser establishes a direct connection with the servers of Facebook. The content of the plug-in is directly transmitted to your server by Facebook and is incorporated by it in the website.

By incorporating the plug-in, Facebook receives the information that your browser has accessed a respective page of our web presence, even if you do not have a Facebook account or are currently not logged in to Facebook. Your browser directly transfers this information (including your IP address) to a server of Facebook in the USA and stored there.

In case you are logged in to Facebook, Facebook can directly assign the visit of our website to your Facebook account. When you interact with the plug-ins, for example by clicking the “LIKE” or “SHARE” button, the respective information is also directly transferred to a server of Facebook and stored there. This information is furthermore published on Facebook and displayed to your Facebook friends.

Facebook can use this information for the purpose of advertisements, market research and the needs-based design of the Facebook pages. For this purpose, Facebook generates profiles on the use, interests and relationships, e.g. in order to evaluate your use of our website with regard to the advertisements displayed to you on Facebook, to inform other Facebook users of your activities on our website and to provide other services which are connected with the use of Facebook.

If you do not want Facebook to assign the data, which is collected through our web presence, to your Facebook account, please log out of Facebook before visiting our website.

Please refer to the privacy notice of Facebook (https://www.facebook.com/about/privacy/) regarding the purpose and extent of this data collection and the further processing and use of the data by Facebook as well as your corresponding rights and setting options for the protection of your privacy.

b) Twitter

On our internet pages, plug-ins of the short message network of Twitter Inc. (Twitter) are integrated. The Twitter plug-ins (tweet button) can be recognized by the twitter logo on our website. An overview over the tweet buttons can be found here (https://about.twitter.com/resources/buttons).

When you visit a page of our web presence which contains such a plug-in, a direct connection between your browser and the Twitter server is established. By that, Twitter receives the information that you visited our website with your IP address. When you click on the Twitter “tweet button” while being logged in to your Twitter account, you can link the contents of our site at your twitter account. By that, Twitter can assign the visit of our pages to your user account. We would like to point out that we, as the provider of the pages, do not receive any information on the content of the transmitted data and their use by Twitter.

If you do not want Twitter to assign the visit of our pages, please log out of Twitter before visiting our website.

For further information, please refer to the privacy statement of Twitter (https://twitter.com/privacy).

c) Instagram

So-called social plug-ins (“Plug-ins”) of Instagram, which is operated by Instagram LLC., 1601 Willow Road, Menlo Park, CA 94025, USA (“Instagram”) are used on our website.

The plug-ins are marked with an Instagram logo, e.g. in shape of an “Instagram photo camera”.

When you visit a page of our web presence which contains such a plug-in, your browser establishes a direct connection to the servers of Instagram. The content of the plug-in is directly transferred to your server by Instagram and incorporated in the website. Due to this incorporation, Instagram receives the information that your browser has accessed a respective page of our web presence, even if you do not own an Instagram account or are currently not logged in to Instagram.

This information (including your IP address) is directly transmitted by your browser to a server of Instagram in the USA and stored there. When you are logged in to Instagram, Instagram can directly assign the visit of our website to your Instagram account. When you interact with the plug-ins, e.g. by clicking the “Instagram” button, this information is also transmitted directly to a server of Instagram and stored there.

The information is furthermore published on your Instagram account and displayed to your contacts there.

If you do not want Instagram to directly assign the data which is collected through our web presence to your Instagram account, please log out of Instagram before visiting our website.

Further information on that can be found in the privacy note of Instagram (https://help.instagram.com/155833707900388).
 

7. Rights of the persons affected

You have the right to:

  • according to article 15 German General Data Protection Regulation, request information on the personal data which is processed by us. In particular, you can request information on the purposes of processing, the category of the personal data, the category of recipients towards which your data was or will be disclosed, the planned duration of storage, the existence of a right to correction, deletion, limitation of processing or objection, the existence of a right to appeal, the origin of your data provided that they were not collected by us, as well as on the existence of an automated decision finding including profiling and possibly significant information on its details;
  • according to article 16 German General Data Protection Regulation, request immediate correction of incorrect data or completion of your personal data stored by us;
  • according to article 17 German General Data Protection Regulation, request deletion of your personal data stored by us, provided that the processing is not required for exercising the freedom of expression and information, for fulfilling a legal obligation, for reasons of public interest or for asserting, exercising or defending legal claims;
  • according to article 18 German General Data Protection Regulation, request the limitation of the processing of your personal data, provided that the correctness of the data is disputed by you, the processing is illegal, you do, however, reject their deletion and we no longer require the data, you do, however, need the data for asserting, exercising or defending legal claims or when you have filed an objection against the processing according to according to article 21 German General Data Protection Regulation;
  • according to article 20 German General Data Protection Regulation, request to receive your personal data that you have provided to us in a structured, common and machine readable format or request the transmittal to another person responsible;
  • according to article 7, par. 3 of the German General Data Protection Regulation, revoke your previous consent given to us at any time. As a consequence, we must not continue the data processing which was based on this consent in the future and
  • according to article 77 German General Data Protection Regulation file a complaint with a supervisory authority. Usually, you can turn to the supervisory authority of your usual residence or work place or our registered office.

8. Right of objection

Provided that your personal data has been processed based on the justified interest according to art. 6, par. 1, sentence 1 lit. f German General Data Protection Regulation, you have the right to file an opposition against the processing of your personal data according to art. 21 German General Data Protection Regulation, to the extent that there are reasons which result from your special situation or when the opposition is directed against direct advertisement. In the latter case, you have a general right to opposition which can be implemented by us without the specification of a special situation.

If you would like to make use of your right to revocation or opposition, a simple email to mail@patguard.de is sufficient.

9. Data security

During the website visit, we use the popular SSL method (Secure Socket Layer) in connection with the respective maximum encryption level that is supported by your server. Usually, this is a 256 Bit encryption. In case your browser does not support a 256 Bit encryption, we draw on a 128 Bit v3 technology. You will recognize from the closed illustration of the key or lock symbol in the bottom status bar of your browser whether an individual page of our internet presence is transmitted in an encrypted manner.

Apart from that, we use suitable technical and organizational security measures in order to protect your data against accidental or deliberate manipulation, partial or complete loss, destruction or against the unauthorized access by third parties. Our security measures are continuously being improved in accordance with the technological developments.

10. Topicality and amendment of this data protection declaration

This data protection declaration is currently valid as of May 2018.

Due to the further development of our website and offers provided on it or due to amended legal of official requirements, it may become necessary to amend this data protection declaration. The respectively valid data protection declaration can be accessed and printed by you at any time through our website http://www.patguard.de/eng/admin/navigation/languageiso/EN/Data_protection/index.htm.