On April 26, the Geschäftsgeheimnisgesetz (Trade Secrets Act, “Act”) came into effect. It took Germany over a year from the implementation deadline to transpose the Trade Secrets Directive (“Directive”) into national law. The Act replaces the provisions of the Unfair Competition Act on misappropriation of trade secrets and introduces new procedural rules for trade secret
Right of communication: German Federal Supreme Court applies GS Media to internet search engines
In Thumbnails III, the German Federal Supreme Court (‘BGH’) held that the depiction of so-called thumbnails of pictures available from the internet does not constitute an act of copyright infringement, unless the search engine operator had knowledge of the fact that the copyrighted material had been illegally uploaded. The BGH further stressed that, with regard