History

Best Rechtsanwälte was founded in 1998 as Freitag & Best, Rechtsanwälte, by Dr. Michael Best and his former partner Dr. Robert Freitag and became operational in January 1999. Prior to founding the firm, they had been deputy head and head of the trademark department of Hoechst AG - later Hoechst Marion Roussel - and handled the global portfolio of trademarks, designs and other non-technical intellectual property rights of the group for many years.

The partners had decided to establish their own law firm as a spin-off from the Hoechst group when the service functions of the group were decentralised. Among the firm’s early clients were the many companies, subsidiaries and joint ventures which resulted from the restructuring of the Hoechst group. Many of these are still valued clients. Yet the client base of the firm has changed and broadened over the last ten years and now extends across numerous sectors of industry and commerce. The firm’s clients include pharmaceutical and chemical companies, power and automotive companies, cosmetics and fashion labels.

Since its foundation, the firm has continued to grow and currently the team consists of ten highly motivated and experienced attorneys, paralegals and support staff. Despite the sad and untimely death of Dr. Robert Freitag in the year 2007, the firm has been able to strengthen its position further and in January 2009 was joined by a new partner, Udo Pfleghar, who comes to the firm after several years as head of the group trademark and domain law at the Boehringer Ingelheim group and as a senior examiner at the OHIM in Alicante.

Since its beginning, the firm has focussed exclusively on trademarks, designs, domains, unfair competition and copyright matters to provide the best possible service to its clients in its areas of specialization and expertise.