Guenther Schmalz was born at Nuremberg, Germany. He attended Johannes-Scharrer-Gymnasium, a business grammar school, where he studied accounting, economics and business administration. His inclination towards the natural sciences then led him to study engineering at university. In 1985 Guenther obtained the Masters in electronic engineering from the Friedrich-Alexander University of Erlangen, Germany. Equally fascinated by Law Günther joined in 1986 Philips IP & Standards in Nuremberg, drafted and filed applications for patents, utility models, design models and trademarks for wired and wireless communication systems, audio and video codecs, television studio equipment and DVD technology. He also dealt with oppositions of third parties' patents. Progressively many of these applications were drafted in English.
In 1991 he passed the German Patent Attorney Exam and in 1993 he passed the European Patent Attorney Exam. In 1998 Guenther was appointed “Licensing Assignee” and granted full responsibility for licensing projects of Philips in Germany and Austria.
In January 2000 Guenther commenced working for Ericsson in Nuremberg as IP group leader. Apart from the basic tasks Guenther became inter alia responsible for drafting cooperation contracts with universities and contracts for acquiring third parties’ IP.
In October 2002, Guenther was head-hunted by SAP AG, the largest software company in Europe and third largest in the world. As IP strategist, he was in charge of the portfolio of “e-Commerce”. Within months, Guenther was promoted to the position of interim joint Chief IP Officer. Guenther reported directly to the Chairman and Managing Director and advised the Board on IP strategic and legal issues. At the same time Guenther was promoted to the position of head of the German patent department of SAP. From 2004 to 2005 Guenther lobbied against the proposed “European software directive”. He represented SAP at meetings with German politicians, the German Chancellor’s Office, the German Ministry of Justice, the European Commission and members of the European Parliament to defend SAP’s objectives.
In April 2007 Guenther left SAP to set up his own business. In 2008 Guenther obtained a masters of law CEIPI, Robert Schuman University of Strasbourg, France. Right after this “master en droit” he moved to Monaco and established his office in Monaco. In 2012 Guenther passed his exam at CEIPI to become awarded the diploma in European Patent Litigation (D.U. Contentieux des Brevets en Europe).
Guenther was a member of the Disciplinary Committee of the Institute of Professional Representatives of the European Patent Office (epi) before he had to renounce on this function when he was elected as a board member of this Institute in 2010 and reelected in 2014. In this Institute he was an active member of the Litigation Committee.
On invitation of the German Ministry of Justice Guenther was from 2013-2015 an active member of the Examination Committee for German Patent Attorneys.
