Entrepreneurs are protected against various types of anti-competitive imitation of their products by third parties. This also includes cases in which third parties have dishonestly obtained the knowledge required for the imitation. In this context, the Higher Regional Court of Hamm ruled that reverse engineering is not dishonest within the meaning of Section 4 No. 3 lit. c) UWG. Anyone who obtains the relevant information in this way is not acting in an anti-competitive manner. However, it is not sufficient that the information could also be obtained through reverse engineering. Rather, the competitor must also be able to prove that it actually obtained the information in this way. In such cases, dishonesty is also determined by the actual way in which the information was obtained (OLG Hamm, judgment of September 15, 2020, Ref.: 4 U 177/19).