Thomas Hirse has extensive experience in patent and utility model law, including all related antitrust law aspects and questions related to employee inventions. In addition, he is specialized on trade secret protection and data protection law specific for life sciences and medical devices companies.

He regularly advises on technology-driven mergers and acquisitions as well as patent litigation matters particularly in the life sciences and medical devices sector as well as plant engineering and construction industry. He has extensive experience with the legal evaluation and enforcement of intellectual property, including development of IP protection concepts and strategy. Additionally, Thomas successfully drafted and negotiated numerous complex R&D and license agreements and handled IP-related issues in R&D and licensing collaborations for his clients, including related competition law and public funding and subsidy law aspects.

Thomas advises and represents clients in national and international patent disputes with respect to both enforcement of their patents and the defense of patent infringement actions, including representation in opposition, invalidation and cancellation proceedings. He regularly provides patent FTO-analyses.

He started his legal career with Linklaters in 2006, joined CMS in 2007 and was seconded to Bayer in 2010 and a global specialty chemical enterprise in 2013. He has been a partner since 2014.

Thomas is member of GRUR, LES, AIPLA, EPLAW, the Advisory Board of the Research Alliance Leibniz Health Technologies, Co-Head of the working group "IP and technology agreements" and active member of the working group "Technology transfer" of the German biotech association BIO Deutschland e.V.