Dr. Christoph Süßenberger

Lawyer / Partner
  • Specialist Lawyer for Industrial Property Law
Eschersheimer Landstraße 25-27
60322 Frankfurt am Main

Dr Christoph Süßenberger has been a lawyer since 1999 and advises start-ups, small and medium-sized companies and international market leaders in various industries on IT law, digitisation and intellectual property law. The spectrum of his work covers contract drafting, project-related consulting, (agile) software development and the legal implementation of innovative services, from XaaS to IoT. Dr Süßenberger provides IT law consultation for corporate transactions and public tendering processes. In addition, he has considerable expertise in the development and use of intellectual property in the digital environment. His clients make use of his litigation experience in the legal defence of their intellectual property rights, IT projects in difficulty and in compliance cases.

  • Expertise
    • IT contract law / outsourcing

      FPS advises in all areas of IT contract law. Whether clients need support in drafting and negotiating IT project contracts, designing and running outsourcing projects or making use of cloud services – we are on hand to help with our experts. In addition to many years of experience in advising a wide range of industries and companies of all sizes, our team has a real technical affinity and a special degree of creativity. This gives us a good technical understanding of our clients’ concerns and business models and enables us to find the best solution for them. Our services include drafting and negotiating IT project contracts (agile, classic, managed services, new business models), outsourcing contracts, service descriptions, service level agreements and pricing plans, and helping clients to prepare for due diligence processes, vendor conferences and on-site visits. We also oversee project and system integration measures as well as hardware and software maintenance and draft licensing, escrow and distribution agreements.

    • IT litigation / mediation

      In many cases, carefully drawn-up project contracts protect the parties from disputes. Due to the content and complexity of IT projects, however, disputes cannot be completely ruled out. We help our clients to get troubled projects back on track by finding sensible solutions. If necessary, we also support them when asserting their rights (judicially) or defending against claims.

    • Data (protection) law

      Digitalisation unlocks new opportunities for companies and creates space for future-oriented and scalable business models. Data has become the most valuable currency in the digital world. Data protection law – or now data law – is a separate advisory field at FPS rather than a mere annex to other areas of law. FPS helps companies to devise future-proof and legally compliant data usage concepts so that they can achieve their goals when using new technologies: innovation and data protection – when understood correctly – needn’t contradict one another. The GDPR with its drastic fines has significantly increased the risks for companies. FPS establishes what a company is permitted to do with the data and ensures compliance with data protection requirements in a pragmatic way by setting up a data protection management system, which, among other things, includes records of processing activities, data protection policies, data protection information, deletion and authorisation concepts, data protection impact assessments, processes for dealing with information and deletion requests from data subjects and much more besides. And if penalty proceedings are initiated, we defend our clients’ rights against the supervisory authorities. We also provide external data protection officers for our clients – for data protection from one single source.

    • IT security / cybersecurity

      While IT security has long been considered a ‘technical’ matter handled solely by a company’s IT department, its legal relevance can no longer be disputed. Alongside buzzwords such as ‘trade secret’, ‘data protection’ or ‘record fine’, the implications of any liability for executives must be taken into account, for example. In order to fully protect a company and its management, a legal assessment of the risks should always be carried out in addition to examining the matter from a technical perspective. FPS devises cybersecurity strategies to protect government agencies as well as business owners and businesses. In the event of an attack, our experts coordinate the immediate action that needs to be taken, getting in touch with their IT security forensic experts, crisis communication agencies, investigative authorities and insurance companies. And we help our clients to defend themselves against claims for damages and administrative fines.

    • Artificial intelligence

      Artificial intelligence (AI) is influencing more and more areas of life and the economy. AI has been a ‘hot topic’ since the advent of ChatGPT. The potential is huge – so the time has come to get to grips with the legal parameters of AI. This includes, for example, protecting AI-generated works and avoiding copyright infringements by texts, images and software created by AI, not to mention any liability issues, data protection implications and the need to find a sensible approach to handling training and production data. FPS ensures that AI applications are legally compliant. We draft contracts, protect intellectual property and help to uphold ethical standards. In the event of any conflicts, we are our clients’ first line of defence. We also hold training courses on the subject of AI for our clients and their employees, together with leading AI consultants on request.

    Language skills

    German English French
  • Education
    since 2006Partner at FPS 
    since 1999Lawyer at FPS 
     Certified Specialist Lawyer for IP Law
    1999Admission to practise law in Germany 
    2000Doctorate (Dr. iur.)
     Second state law exam
     First state law exam
  • Memberships
    • Deutsche Gesellschaft für Recht und Informatik e.V. (DGRI)
    • Deutsche Vereinigung für gewerblichen Rechtsschutz und Urheberrecht (GRUR)
    • ITechLaw Association
  • Publications
    Dr. Christoph Süßenberger
    Allgemeines Werberecht
    Handbuch Multimedia-Recht, Hoeren/Sieber, München 2006, 2006
    Dr. Christoph Süßenberger
    Buchbesprechung: Astrid Auer-Reinsdorff, Andrea Brandenburg: Urheberrecht und Multimedia
    GRUR-Prax, 2004, S. 494
    Dr. Christoph Süßenberger
    The "Publication" of Works Exclusively via the Internet and Their Copyright Protection in Germany
    IBR Immobilien- & Baurecht, 2004, S. 46
    Dr. Christoph Süßenberger
    Urteilsbesprechung: LG Nürnberg-Fürth, Besichtigungsanspruch bei vermuteter Urheberrechtsverletzung
    MMR (MultiMedia und Recht), 2004, S. 627
    Dr. Christoph Süßenberger
    Das "Erscheinen" von Werken ausschließlich über das Internet und ihr urheberrechtlicher Schutz in Deutschland
    GRUR-Prax, 2003, S. 489
  • Events

Awards

JUVE Handbuch Recommended for Trademark, Design and Competition Law
since 2010
The Legal 500 Recommended for IT and Digitalisation
since 2017
Best Lawyers | Handelsblatt Leading in Data Security and Privacy Law
since 2021
Best Lawyers | Handelsblatt Leading in Intellectual Property Law
since 2021
WirtschaftsWoche Top Lawyer for IT Law
2023 | 2022
WirtschaftsWoche Top Lawyer for Data Security and Privacy Law
2020