Margot Fröhlinger, former Director at the European Commission in charge of Intellectual Property, joined the European Patent Office in April 2012 where she is Principal Director for Unitary Patent, European and International Legal Affairs. In this position she deals with issues such as the development of patent law at European and international levels, patent law harmonisation, the strengthening and improvement of the PCT system as well as with the implementation of the Unitary Patent and the EPO’s relation with the UPC Preparatory Committee.
Dr. Matthias Zigann is Presiding Judge at the Munich Regional Court. He has been the head of the 7th (patent) division since December 2012. After a three-year fellowship at the Max-Planck-Institute for Innovation and Competition in Munich he served as a public prosecutor in Landshut for four years and as a regular member of the 7th division of the Munich Regional Court for six years. Prior to his appointment as presiding judge he was seconded to serve as a research associate with the Xth civil (patent) division of the German Federal Court of Justice in Karlsruhe for three years. He is co-author of Haedicke/Timmann, Handbuch des Patentrechts, 1st ed. 2012, and Cepl/Voß, Prozesskommentar zum Gewerblichen Rechtsschutz, 1st ed. 2015. Dr Zigann is a frequent speaker at national and international conferences.
During his first years of career, Max Brunner worked in the private sector in various jobs in France, Canada and Finland as Total, Auchan or at the Institut Français d'Helsinki. In the public sector, he was Manager of the budget Office at the Ministry of Justice. He became Manager of the Office of the operators, Head of the management control Department, and then Assistant to the Deputy Director of the mission of programs responsible for the performance sector and Head of the management control, at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. In September 2014 he became the French UPC’s project manager at the Ministry of Justice in the European and International Department in the General Secretary.
Douglas was called to the Bar of England and Wales in 1993 and became Queen’s Counsel (QC) in 2016. He is one of the few QCs to specialize in both hard IP (patents) and soft IP (trade marks, designs). He is an editor of Terrell on the Law of Patents, the leading UK textbook on patent law. Douglas became a deputy judge in the lower specialist first instance intellectual property court in the UK (then known as the Patents County Court, now known as the Intellectual Property Enterprise Court) in October 2010. Since June 2017 he has heard cases in the higher specialist first instance intellectual property court in the UK (now known as the Intellectual Property List). In his capacity as a deputy judge he also hears non-IP civil cases, and (since 2014) criminal cases. He was a member of the Attorney General’s Panel of Junior Counsel to the Crown from 2010-2015 and acted for and/or advised many Government departments including the UK Intellectual Property Office (UKIPO), the Ministry of Justice, the Home Office, HMRC, the Treasury, and the Cabinet Office. He has acted as an expert witness on UK intellectual property law in US District Court proceedings in the Southern District of New York.
Liz is a Divisional Director at the UK Intellectual Property Office. She joined the UK civil service as a patent examiner in 1983, moving to a corporate services role in 1993 and into intellectual property policy from 1995. She was seconded twice to the EU Commission as a national expert, working first in the copyright unit and later in the industrial property unit, and she has been involved since 2000 with the various incarnations of what is now the Unified Patent Court and the Unitary Patent.
Since November 2009, Mr. Debrulle is the Head of the Belgian Intellectual Property Office which depends on the Ministry of Economy.
He represents Belgium within the Administrative Council of the European Patent Organisation.
Mr. Debrulle is since March 2013 the Chairman of the EPO Select Committee which is in charge of the implementation of the Unitary Patent Protection.
Penny’s strong scientific background has led to her specialisation in advising clients in the life sciences sector. She represents clients before the UK patent courts, Court of Appeal and Supreme Court and has represented clients in referrals to the CJEU and EFTA Court. She has a wealth of experience in co-ordinating multi-jurisdictional patent litigation and has represented clients in European Patent Office opposition and appeal proceedings and in appeals from the UK IPO. Penny also represents clients in patent licence disputes before the UK Courts and in arbitration. She is a qualified mediator and a solicitor advocate.
Klaus Haft obtained his physics degree in 1997, became an attorney in 2002, and advises on patent infringement litigation cases, subsequent litigation regarding damages as well as licenses in the entire area of intellectual property law, particularly in the fields of patents. His particular focus is on standards, electronics, software, optics, electrics and general mechanics. Klaus studied in Würzburg and Munich. He completed his degree thesis in 1997 as a member of the Spin Muon Collaboration at the European Center for Particle Physics, CERN, in Geneva, Switzerland. Parallel to his studies, he started in 1990 to specialize in intellectual property law and, in particular, in patent law. Klaus is a visiting lecturer at the Maastricht University, President of the European Patent Lawyers Association (EPLAW) and Secretary of the Licensing Executives Society (LES) Germany.
Camille Lignieres is a Judge at the High Court of Paris (Tribunal de Grande Instance de Paris), President of a three-judge panel and specialised in Intellectual property. She is a member of the Circle of European Trademarks Judges (CETJ), she attends regularly Judges Seminars organized by EPO (Munich, Venice), EUIPO (Alicante) and she participates as lecturer in EU Seminars and Conferences such as:
- European Annual seminars of the CETJ (Firenze, Trier, Leiden)
- Academy of European Law (ERA) conferences: IP enforcement in the EU (Trier)
- UCL IBIL : Question the TM Judges (London)
- Expert patent judges' workshop (London)
Yann Ménière joined the European Patent Office as Chief Economist in February 2016. He was previously a professor of economics at MINES ParisTech, where he was leading the Chair on "IP and Markets for Technology". His research and expertise relate to the economics of innovation, competition and intellectual property. In recent years, he has been focusing more specifically on IP and standards, markets for technology, and IP issues in climate negotiations. Besides his academic publications, he has prepared a number of policy studies related to patents for the European Commission and other public organisations. He has been teaching the economics of IP at Imperial College, Université Catholique de Louvain and CEIPI.
Eric Mille is a judge at the French speaking Brussels commercial court. Since 2015, this court is the sole first instance (French speaking) court in charge with patent cases in Belgium and Eric presides the (3 judges) chamber of the court which rules in these cases. He is also in charge of descriptive seizure claims in patent matters. Eric has both a legal and a technical (physics engineering) background. Previously to his position as a judge, he was for more than 12 years an attorney at law in the IP practice group of a major UK business law firm, where he was involved in a number of multi-jurisdictional patent cases. Before joining the bar, Eric was a patent counsel for nearly 10 years, both in the industry and in the private practice.
Ansgar Ohly holds the Chair for Civil Law, Intellectual Property and Competition Law at the Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich. He is also a permanent Visiting Professor at the University of Oxford. His main fields of academic interest are all areas of intellectual property law, with a special emphasis on European developments and in the comparison of civil law and common law systems. His recent publications include an article on the future of the UPC after Brexit (GRUR Int. 2017, 1, with R. Streinz), and a commentary on the German law of unfair competition (2016, with O. Sosnitza). He is also the co-editor of GRUR, the leading German intellectual property journal.
Alexander Ramsay is the Chairman of the Preparatory Committee of the Unified Patent Court and a judge at the Swedish Patent and Market Court. In his former employment as Deputy Director at the Swedish Ministry of Justice he was heavily involved in the negotiations that lead to the adoption of the two Regulations on the Unitary Patent Protection as well as the Agreement on the Unified Patent Court.
Thibault Schrepel holds a Ph.D. (US & EU) as well as a LL.M. degree. In addition to being a practitioner, he publishes on antitrust law and patent issues in a number of law reviews, including at Harvard, NYU, Oxford, SMU and Queen Mary. Some of his writing includes « Towards a Global Patent Arms Race » at the Journal of World Economics, « Patent Privateering – Patents as weapons » at the University of Cincinnati Law Review, « Patent Troll Through the US and EU Antitrust Law » at the European Competition Law Review, and, more recently, « Thoughts on the optimal duration of patents: a legal regime protecting innovation? » at the Industrial Property Law Review. He is a frequent speaker at national and international conferences on antitrust and patent law. He first book, entitled « predatory innovation », will be released this year.
Born 1966 Dr. Thomaier is Head of IP of the Bayer Group since 2010, responsible for all IP Matters – Patents, Trademarks, Licenses and all related matters - within the Bayer Group.
In 2012 he restructured the Germany based IP Community of Bayer by establishing the Bayer IP GmbH, encompassing all IP Functions in Germany, serving as the IP Management Company within Bayer, taking on the role as the Managing Director of said entity as part of his role.
He studied Chemistry in Heidelberg, Freiburg, Utrecht and Zürich, holds a PhD in Chemistry and is a trained European Patent Attorney.
Paul van Beukering graduated from Nijmegen University with a law degree (specialisation in Intellectual Property law and European competition law) in 1989.
From 1990 to 2006 he worked in several positions in the field of intellectual property and European law at the Netherlands’ Ministry of Agriculture.
In 2006 he joined the Ministry of Economic affairs, where he heads the Intellectual Property unit. Paul represents the Netherlands in various international organisations in the field of intellectual property (World Intellectual Property Organisation, European Patent Office, European Union Intellectual Property Office, Benelux Office for Intellectual Property, European Union Council working parties on IP).
From 2013 - 2015 Paul was chairman of the Preparatory Committee of the Unified Patent Court.
Ton van Hoef is Senior Vice President & Chief Intellectual Property (IP) Counsel at ASML and responsible for worldwide IP management. After having obtained a MS degree in Electronics, he worked as a patent attorney at Philips Electronics (NL) and later served as chief patent counsel at Hunter Douglas (NL). Ton qualified as both Dutch and European patent attorney, and has been involved in large licensing deals, merger projects, and worldwide litigations.
ASML, headquartered in Veldhoven (NL), with offices in over 60 cities in 16 countries, creates products and services that let its customers define the patterns that integrated circuits are made of.
Constant van Nispen graduated from Leiden University in 1972 and obtained there in 1978 cum laude a PhD with a thesis on injunctions. From 1977 to 2010 he was an advocate at the lawfirm De Brauw Blackstone Westbroek (and predecessors) in The Hague where he headed for many years the intellectual property department. He also specialized in Supreme Court litigation. Since 1993 he has hold the chair for civil procedural law at the Free University at Amsterdam and since 2011 he has been deputy judge in the Court of Appeal in The Hague. He is co-author of the Dutch handbook (3 vol.) on industrial property law and co-editor of BIE, the leading Dutch IP journal.
Pierre Véron first practised in various legal fields (civil, criminal, commercial law) before focusing on industrial property litigation. In 2001, Pierre Véron founded, with Isabelle Romet, Sabine Agé and Thomas Bouvet, the law firm Véron & Associés whose activity is exclusively devoted to patent litigation. Pierre Véron’s experience and reputation won him to be ranked among the best litigators in the world in this area. From 2007 to 2012, Pierre Véron was one of the two French experts who assisted the European Commission in setting up a European patent with unitary effect and a European patent court; he is a member of the Drafting Committee of the Rules of Procedure of the Unified Patent Court. He is now a member of the group of experts advising the Preparatory Committee of the Unified Patent Court. As a former president of an arbitration centre and former associate member of the Chartered Institute of Arbitrators, he participated in several arbitration procedures, either as a counsel, an arbitrator or president of the arbitral court.
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