DUSSELDORF, Germany --- The proceedings of Krauss-Maffei Wegmann GmbH & Co. KG (KMW) against Rheinmetall AG and Mr Papperger before the Munich I Regional Court concerned whether certain statements made by Mr Papperger in an interview with the Neue Zürcher Zeitung on March 15, 2023 on the question of the possible use of a Leopard 2A4 hull for the Panther KF51 main battle tank ("Rheinmetall owns the rights up to the Leopard 2A4" and "We built a thousand Leopard 2A4s, based on our own intellectual property") should be understood to mean that he was claiming exclusive rights to the Leopard 2A4 main battle tank in favor of Rheinmetall.
KMW had asserted this. Rheinmetall and Mr. Papperger saw things differently. The clarification of questions about "copyright to the Leopard" or the question of whether a party has exclusive or sole rights to the Leopard 2A4 hull were not part of the proceedings.
The parties are aware that, especially in the current situation (each party individually and within the framework of their existing cooperation also together) they have to make an important contribution to the security of our country and our allies.
The parties have therefore endeavored to resolve the dispute as quickly as possible in order to be able to return to day-to-day business.
In this respect, we declare the following in coordination with KMW:
"Neither Mr. Papperger nor Rheinmetall AG wanted or want to use the reprimanded statements to express that Rheinmetall AG has exclusive rights to the Leopard 2A4 main battle tank.
On the basis of this clarification, the process could be ended by mutual agreement."
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