Among other roles in my life (dad, husband, cyclist, musician, to name a few) I am a lawyer and certified data protection officer living and working in Germany. I am licensed to practice German law (including EU law) and am focusing on Intellectual Property (IP) and Information Technology (IT) law. I am author of the book Federal legal protection - Personal data in an area of freedom, security and justice (Föderaler Rechtsschutz - Personenbezogene Daten in einem Raum der Freiheit, der Sicherheit und des Rechts), written in German with an English summary, available as eBook and Hardcover via SpringerLink and elsewhere.
I have always enjoyed new technologies, beautiful industrial designs, electronic music, and software. I got into coding when I went to school and was on the verge of study IT engineering, but decided in favor of the law. Since you are the best version of yourself when you do what you love, I decided to advise clients in the fields I enjoy the most and am most familiar with. This includes licensing and commercially exploiting technologies and underlying IP rights such as copyrights, patents, and trade secrets. For the latter, I have created a separate website available at tradesecrets.eu (to be published soon). I regularly advise on IT and data protection as well as cyber security issues and have drafted and negotiated numerous IT agreements, including development, licensing, XaaS, and outsourcing agreements.
This is a personal blog and website about law & stuff in the areas I enjoy and often provide legal advice. Opinions stated on this website are my own and do not reflect any organization I am associated with. I am not offering legal services on this website. This blog and website is for fun and informational purposes only. By using this website you understand that there is no attorney client relationship between you and hak the lawyer. This blog/website should not be used as a substitute for competent legal advice from a licensed professional attorney.
While I do not offer legal services over this website, I am associated with DLA Piper. You can reach out to me if you have a matter involving IP, IT, trade secrets, data protection/privacy, or other business related questions. I often advice companies from the US or other countries expanding to Germany or the EU. I am also experienced in cross-border IP/IT litigation but prefer solving disputes for my clients out of court. If you are looking for legal advice in any of these areas, you can contact me or write an email to holger.kastler@dlapiper.com. You can also reach out to me on LinkedIn.
I created this blog to write about things I like and which I find interesting, but sometimes does not fit the purpose, to the target audience, or other media. This blog allows me to write more than 140/280 characters per tweet article, to select topics that are not strictly legal or relevant for the majority of clients, and to write blog posts in a more witty style. I hope you enjoy reading it and I would appreciate any feedback you may have. Feel free to contact me if you have any questions or comments.
If you want to follow me and get news alerts when there is new content on this blog, simply follow me on twitter, LinkedIn and/or Medium, or just come by and visit this website every once in a while.