McDonald’s trademark is defended, and a website’s blocking is questioned

Anybody owning a smartphone that runs the Android operating system or uses Google’s Chrome internet browser will have had to agree to the terms of use when launching them for the first time. The compliance of these conditions with the Slovak and Czech legal systems is supervised by the Havel & Partners law firm that provides legal advice on intellectual property rights to the US corporation Alphabet, the parent company of Google.

Havel & Partners received its mandate in 2016.

“It concerns mostly assessing and setting the terms of use of the products, their development, expanding functionality and modifications,” said partner Štepán Štarha. “A large part of the agenda is the copyright protection of companies in the Alphabet group.”

​Havel & Partners defended its top spot in the Intellectual Property category of the latest edition of the Largest Law Firms ranking, composed by The Slovak Spectator and the Sme daily. Each of the 10 largest law firms in this field were permitted to reference one deal, details of which could be published.

Room for boutique law firms

For the first time, law firms with revenues below €1 million could also be listed in the ranking this year.

“After consulting the market players we decided to take into consideration law firms with lower revenues because big full-service law firms do not compete for clients solely with one another, but also with smaller specialised, so-called boutique, law firms,” said Ján Pallo, publisher of The Slovak Spectator.