A German company can bind an employee not to work for a competitor after leaving. Under Section 74 of the Commercial Code, the ban is binding only if the company pays compensation for its whole duration, at least half of the employee’s last pay for each year. The ban may last no more than two years and must protect a legitimate business interest.
The Knowledge Balance Sheet
In 2013 the Federal Ministry of Economics published a guide called Wissensbilanz – Made in Germany, the knowledge balance sheet. It shows companies how to record their intellectual capital, their human, structural and relational capital, alongside the financial balance sheet. The method was developed and tested with more than fifty companies. According to the guide, experts agree that most of the success of such companies comes from their intellectual capital, and that a lead in knowledge is in many fields the decisive competitive advantage.
Keep the People, Keep the Secret
In a 2007 survey, published in 2012, the state development bank KfW asked mid-sized German companies how they protect their innovations. Almost three in five rated a head start in time over competitors as important. Next came keeping qualified staff for the long term, named by 29 percent, and secrecy, named by 27 percent. Patents came well behind, at about 19 percent.
The Blocking Notice
When German students write their final thesis with a company, the thesis often carries a Sperrvermerk, a blocking notice. A standard form from the Technische Hochschule Brandenburg, a university of applied sciences, reads: Dieses Schriftstück enthält vertrauliche Informationen. “This document contains confidential information.” The thesis may not be copied or made public, and may be read only for the purpose of the examination. The duty of confidentiality can continue for up to two years after the agreement ends.
Luhmann’s Card Index
The sociologist Niklas Luhmann kept a card index from the early 1950s into the 1990s. It grew to about 90,000 slips of paper. He described it as a partner in communication. Meine Produktivität ist im wesentlichen aus dem Zettelkasten-System zu erklären, he said: “My productivity can essentially be explained by the card index system.” Bielefeld University acquired his papers in 2011, and in 2019 the card index went online.
Operation Osoaviakhim
In the early morning of 22 October 1946, Soviet officers, each with an interpreter and an armed soldier, went to the homes of selected German specialists in the Soviet zone of occupation and took them to the Soviet Union. German Wikipedia gives more than 2,500 specialists. Most worked in aviation and rocketry, nuclear research, chemistry and optics. Almost 300 of them were specialists in optics and glass. The operation served to secure the transfer of know-how. Many family members were taken with them. Sources give different totals.
Ship Engines and a University
In April 2024 federal prosecutors had three Germans arrested in Bad Homburg and Düsseldorf. They were suspected of working for a Chinese intelligence service and of obtaining information on militarily usable technology. A couple among them had set up a research cooperation with a German university, which began with a study on parts for powerful ship engines. In December 2025 the Higher Regional Court of Düsseldorf sentenced the main defendant to three years in prison and the couple to two years each on probation. The conviction was for violating EU export rules on goods that can serve both civilian and military purposes. The espionage charge was dropped. As of December 2025, the verdict was not final.
The MP3 Licenses
The MP3 format for compressed music was developed largely at the Fraunhofer Society. From 1998 until April 2017, Fraunhofer and its partner Thomson charged license fees for hardware and software that made or played MP3 files. Fraunhofer ended its licensing program on 23 April 2017.
Knowledge carriers
Der Wissensträger — the knowledge carrier. A German term for the person in whom a body of expertise sits.
Wissen ist Macht — knowledge is power, said in German with no irony and no particular objection.
The team’s knowledge is spoken of as something held, carried and accumulated, rather than as something that circulates.
Business secrets
The employer’s statutory duty to report to the works meeting on the establishment’s financial position carries an express limitation: only as far as there is no risk of disclosing trade or business secrets. Even the most sweeping German information duty stops at the point where knowledge becomes an asset that could leave.