Professional experience
Frank Peterreins is Managing Principal in the Munich office of Fish & Richardson. He has an active patent prosecution and litigation practice. On the prosecution side, Dr. Peterreins has prosecuted patents relating to medical devices, mechanical engineering including automotive and aeronautical engineering, physics, computer science, civil engineering, and optics. On the litigation side, Dr. Peterreins has handled cases involving drug-eluting stents, catheters, dialysis machines, turbochargers, circuit breakers, folding machines, disk brakes, feeding devices for presses, and compressors.

Dr. Peterreins has handled opposition cases (Opposition Divisions of the European Patent Office), including opposition appeal proceedings (Boards of Appeal of the European Patent Office); nullity cases (Federal Patent Court), including nullity appeal proceedings (Federal Supreme Court); and infringement litigation (District Court Mannheim and District Court Duesseldorf).

Dr. Peterreins was also a patent examiner with the European Patent Office.

Litigation examples
Dr. Peterreins has been actively involved in more than 70 cases, acting as lead counsel in about 40 of these cases.

Representative cases include:

Represented a worldwide developer, manufacturer and marketer of medical devices in a patent infringement case involving drug-eluting stents.

Represented a leading global medical device company – screened 300 EP patents and patent applications, and finally asserted four patents against a competitor.

Represented one of the top mobile handset makers in a case involving a JPEG patent (the “Vogel patent”); handled a nullity case and the patent was completely invalidated. Presently the lead counsel in the appeal procedure and appeal is now pending.

Represented a leading developer of products for minimally invasive surgical procedures in a case involving a patent on a sling system for incontinence treatment. The patent was severely limited and the scope of protection irrelevant.

Represented a holding company and integrated provider of automobile parts, accessories, and related equipment. An infringement action was filed; we filed a counter law suit based on an inventorship issue, in parallel, then filed a nullity action, and the patent was finally declared invalid by the Federal Patent Court.

Bar admissions
German Attorney at Law
German Patent Attorney
European Patent Attorney

Additional information
Fluent in German and English.