German Federal Court of Justice: Facebook must grant heirs full access to a deceased person’s account (Update 2020)

Note: This is an update to this author’s earlier articles from 2016, 2017 and 2018, see: Berlin District Court: Facebook must grant heirs access to a deceased person’s account (2016). Berlin Court of Appeals: Facebook is not obliged to grant heirs access to a deceased person’s account (2017) German Federal Court of Justice: Facebook must […]

Agile Software Development under German Law

Agile software development is a method of choice in many projects. It is generally regarded as a state-of-the art method that emphasizes flexibility and eventual results as opposed to more traditional approaches based on carefully laid-out plans, milestones, and schedules. Agile projects typically involve a collaborative effort of self-organizing and cross-functional teams formed not only […]

OLG Düsseldorf: Apple vs. Samsung: Injunctions against sale of certain Samsung tablet PCs in Germany

(Galaxy Tab 8.9 and Galaxy Tab 10.1; OLG Düsseldorf, Urteil vom 31. Jan. 2012, Az. I 20 U 126/11 and I 20 U 157/11) The Appellate Court of Dusseldorf has ruled on 31 January 2012 that the sale of certain models of Samsung tablet PCs – namely Galaxy Tab 8.9 and Galaxy Tab 10.1 – […]

The German Federal Court of Justice on online newspaper archives and personal rights of publicity (BGH, Urteil vom 30. Oktober 2012 – VI ZR 4/12)

A couple of days ago the German Federal Court of Justice has handed down an interesting decision regarding the question whether an individual may demand that his name be deleted from press articles in publicly available online newspaper archives, if the matter reported is long in the past and no longer currently relevant (Bundesgerichtshof, Urteil […]

Valve under pressure for forbidding transfer of user accountsterms and conditions to be illegal

Valve Corporation, the operator of the popular Steam online games platform, finds itself under pressure in Germany. This January (2013), the Verbraucherzentrale Bundesverband, an important German consumer protection organization, has filed a law suit against Valve for alleged violation of consumer rights. Date: January 2013

German trademark law: Black-and-white trademarks may not automatically offer protection against colored copies, German Federal Court of Justice rules

The German Federal Court of Justice (Bundesgerichtshof, BGH) has handed down a decision which shines a light on a curious aspect of trademark law. In the case which was decided on 12 March 2015, German automaker BMW had sued a company which had produced and sold replica badges with the famous BMW sign, namely the […]

WhatsApp English Language Terms and Conditions do not bind German consumers – Terms and Conditions must be in German Language, Berlin Court of Appeals rules

Dr. Marcus Dittmann (Lawyer) Last updated 1 June 2016 The Berlin Court of Appeals has ruled that WhatsApp’s Terms and Conditions do not bind German consumers, as long as they are available only in English and as long as there is no German version or translation (Kammergericht, Urteil vom 08.04.2016, Az. 5 U 156/14, link […]

Industrie 4.0 – Industrial Data and Machine-Generated Data under German Law

Dr. Marcus Dittmann (Lawyer) Last updated 14 July 2016 Machine-generated data is increasingly gaining in importance and relevance to business activities. Cloud services, online and mobile user activities, server logs, vehicle telemetry, car-sharing services, sensor data, processes in the manufacturing and transport industry generate huge amounts of data. In Germany, a prominent buzzword for this […]

Berlin Court of Appeals: Facebook is not obliged to grant heirs access to a deceased person’s account

Note: This is an update to this author’s earlier article from 2016, see: Berlin District Court: Facebook must grant heirs access to a deceased person’s account (2016). In December 2015, the Local District Court of Berlin had decreed that Facebook must grant the heirs of a deceased user access to the deceased’s Facebook account (Landgericht […]

Update Games Law Germany 2018 – 2019

Legal Update Games Law 2018-2019 Germany Claas has given an update on recent developments in German law for computer games at the International Games Law Summit in Vilnius 2019. As of the request of participants you can download the slides here.