Find Lawyers in Cologne, Germany for Information Technology Law

“IT Law” is short for information technology law, a legal field of ever increasing significance. In a nutshell, IT law encompasses every aspect of the law associated with information systems and/or services. Although it currently lacks any proper definition under German law, the general consensus is that this is an independent legal field in its own right. There is a sense that IT law constitutes interdisciplinary material that embraces a number of different law fields in connection with information technology. Indeed, there’s a thin line between industrial property rights, media and entertainment laws when it comes to drafting license agreements or R&D contracts.

That said, full-range IT law consulting encompasses matters such as:

• Software agreements (e.g., license renewals, maintenance, distribution, escrow, and design copyrights)
• Hardware agreements (e.g., re-/purchase, lease, maintenance, development, and distribution)
• IT projects (e.g., ERP system implementation, IT service outsourcing, and electronic invoicing)
• Internet and e-business (including m-commerce)
• Data protection law and IT security (e.g. data protection manuals, data protection audits and services as external data protection officer)
• Extrajudicial and judicial enforcement of/defense against claims (e.g., cases involving IT project failures or court proceedings involving software licensing violations)
• Advisory services involving IT project transactions (e.g., IT due diligence in M&A transactions)
• IT compliance (e.g., licensing and data protection issues, including employee helpline and surveillance matters)

Add to that any legal questions arising from IT service contract awards through public tendering.

In everyday practice, IT law consultancy requires expertise in a broad range of law fields from compliance and data protection laws all the way to contract law – as individually applied to the field of information technology. Moreover, IT lawyers benefit from having at least some technical knowledge, particularly around network and database structures, software functionality, and, if necessary, programming languages. Last but not least, business knowledge is just as important as any field or legal expertise when it comes to finding individual and practical strategies and solutions.