Die Lederhosenaffäre (2021)

Konstantin Zeller is a law student on the verge of graduating who still lives with his mother, Daniela, and accidentally sets fire to the University of Innsbruck library with a camping stove. Afterward, he takes refuge for five years in a position as a trainee lawyer at the small Innsbruck law firm of Dr. Kuschka. When Kuschka retires, Dr. Vinzent Sparber takes over his firm. Kuschka, who lets Konstantin know in passing that he might be his father, would have liked to hand the firm over to him, but that proves impossible because Konstantin has not completed his degree. After the takeover, Sparber fires Konstantin. To help his mother, Konstantin has to hand out flyers dressed in a suit of armor to advertise a medieval festival, when he runs into Olivia, his former great love. Olivia and her husband, Georg Heindl, run a small Tyrolean company that makes and sells short leather trousers. They have been sued by a large Bavarian corporation. Konstantin offers to help her with the trademark dispute over who invented the short leather trousers, and hopes to win back his now-married ex-girlfriend. However, he hides from her the fact that he has not completed his studies and is not a lawyer. Gernkönig, Tyrol’s deputy mayor, who has been abandoned by his party, wants to use the legal dispute to raise his profile and regain his former position. Gernkönig also tells Konstantin that he might be his father. The Bavarian mayor, Marlene Fischer, likewise wants to use the trial to attract media attention. Sparber insists that Konstantin work for him undercover as a trainee lawyer, and gets support from Uli Martens, Kuschka’s former secretary, who now works for Dr. Sparber. Konstantin argues that leather trousers are cultural heritage and therefore belong to everyone, so they cannot be protected by trademark law. He tries to back this up with surveys. The opposing side is represented by DDr. Hitzeck, a trademark-law expert and Konstantin’s former professor. She invokes protection for a word-and-image trademark registered by the Bavarian corporation. Konstantin demands, however, that the opposing side produce evidence to support its claim to originality. The judge gives them a week to do so. After Olivia learns that Konstantin is not a lawyer, Dr. Sparber offers her his legal services. Sparber advises her to settle, while Konstantin advises against it. To gather further arguments, Konstantin and Uli visit Georg’s father, Sepp, at his mountain hut. There, they find evidence in the form of a book showing that the Heindls’ ancestors knew about short leather trousers ten years before the Germans did. However, they lose the book on the way down. In his youth, Sepp was also in Daniela’s band, where she was the singer, so he too may be Konstantin’s father. With the help of an expert, Konstantin manages in time to prove that neither party invented the short leather trousers, meaning the opposing side cannot claim originality. DDr. Hitzeck then withdraws the lawsuit, and the corporation pays all the legal costs. While Daniela emigrates to Greece with her lover, the artist Dimitri Benakis, Uli and Konstantin plan a future together.