The 2012 CIPA congress in London was host to a diverse range of views on some of the key intellectual property topics occupying professionals at the moment. WIPR was there.
In what way is intellectual property law like soccer? That provided an overarching theme for the 2012 Chartered Institute of Patent Attorneys (CIPA) Congress, which took place at the Lancaster London Hotel on October 11 and 12. Some speakers took the theme literally (courts are referees, patentees are defenders, the goal is a victory in court or at a patent office, etc), but most elected to use it more as a guide to the tenor of their talks.
To belabour the analogy just slightly, the conference kicked off with a keynote speech from Wim Van der Eijk, vice president of appeals in directorate general 3 of the European Patent Office (EPO). He addressed the topic of harmonisation and the proposed unitary patent, of which he said that it’s “closer to a result than for a very long time”.
While the ultimate outcome of that process remains to be seen, there has been a continual increase in applications for the existing European Patent administered by the EPO in recent years, and so far, 2012 looks to be following that pattern, with a rise of 5.5 percent in applications during 2011.
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conference call, CIPA, London
