
GRP Rainer Lawyers and Tax Advisors in Cologne, Berlin, Bonn, Dusseldorf, Frankfurt, Hamburg, Munich, Stuttgart and London – www.grprainer.com/en conclude: On July 19, 2013, the Superior Court (OLG) of Hamm (File number: 27 W 57/13) ruled that the additional designation “Osnabrück” to the trade name of a GmbH & Co. KG was not misleading in the case before the Court. The Court explained that the measure of judging whether such an addition is misleading is the accepted practice, i.e. the understanding an average member of the addressed groups would reasonably develop. Case law predominantly assumes that the addition of a place name to a trade name – regardless of the firm’s actual location – is merely an indication if the firm’s head office, the geographic centre of its activities or the origin of the products it manufactures. However, a condition for adding a place name is that there must be an actual connection with the place that is named. For that, it is enough if a firm names a large city as long as the company’s head office is at least within that city’s direct economic region.