Firm History

Zeiner & Zeiner is one of the oldest offices of Vienna and was founded in 1875 mainly as an intellectual property office in the glorious times of the creation of the Paris Union Treaty. The office then expanded rapidly and became internationally oriented. After the First World War the number of partners increased and the firm extended its activities to corporate law, commercial law and all other aspects of business law. The international orientation of the firm was maintained.

After the interruption of the Second World War when the international business was naturally down the office mainly represented racially prosecuted people. The office started immediately after the war again as a business law firm and in the early 50’s of the last century, when foreign investments started to be made in Austria, the firm quickly specialized in handling and taking care of corporate investments of multinational clients in Austria. Since then this has always been the main field of activities of the firm. However, the long reputation and specialization in intellectual property law was fully maintained and further developed. The scope of clients, which at first was mainly concentrated on American corporate investments, was continuously extended to other major European companies doing business in Austria.

After the fall of the Iron Curtain in 1989, Zeiner & Zeiner quickly set up a second office in Praha in the Czech Republic, which has a very similar scope of activities. In 1996 when the office for Harmonization in the Internal Market opened in Alicante, Spain, Zeiner & Zeiner, created a small specialized office in Alicante, which deals mainly with Community Trade Marks and since recently with Community Designs.

Zeiner & Zeiner has always been and intends to remain an independent firm and has slowly grown to its present size by lawyers, who in most cases started in the office and remained as partners. However, the firm is naturally working on an international basis with a large network of long established relations.

The firm is still growing and in view of the geographical location of its main office in Vienna, it has become very specialized in deals in Central and Eastern Europe.