Cologne – Hamburg Regional Court has dismissed a lawsuit brought by the Axel Springer publishing group against Cologne-based Eyeo, the developer of the popular ad blocker Adblock Plus. The judges held that the software does not infringe copyright.
A CMS team comprising Dr Pietro Graf Fringuelli, Dr Heike Blank and Dr Patrick Ehinger again successfully represented Eyeo in the case. The software manufacturer is a longstanding CMS client and has entrusted the firm with the ad blocker litigation. This judgment by Hamburg Regional Court is tribute to the expertise and long experience of the interdisciplinary CMS litigation team headed by Fringuelli and Blank.
The legal dispute between Eyeo and Axel Springer has been running for eight years now. The publishing group brought the first lawsuit against the software developer in Cologne Regional Court in 2014. Eyeo won across the board before the Federal Court of Justice (FCJ). The Federal Constitutional Court rejected Springer’s appeal against the FCJ ruling. The initial lawsuits were primarily based on competition law. Springer’s new action focused solely on copyright and has now failed in these first-level proceedings. If the lawsuit had been successful, it would have had a considerable impact on the way people use the Internet. Alongside ad blockers, it would have affected any anti-tracking software and other privacy tools.
CMS Germany
Dr Pietro Graf Fringuelli, Partner, Cologne
Dr Patrick Ehinger, Senior Associate, Cologne, both Copyright Law
Dr Heike Blank, Partner, Cologne, Litigation
Inhouse at Eyeo
Kai Recke, General Legal Counsel
Press Contact
presse@cms-hs.com
