Dr. Jur. Théophile Margellos was appointed by the European Union Council of Ministers President of the European Union Intellectual Property Boards of Appeal in 2013. Before he served as a Chairperson and previously as a Member of the 1st and 3rd EUIPO Boards of Appeal, alternate Chairperson of the European Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) Board of Appeal and qualified Member of the Boards of Appeal of the Community Plant Variety Office (CPVO) in Angers.

Dr. Margellos is an accredited Mediator of the Chartered Institute of Arbitrators (CIArb) and of the Centre of Effective Dispute Resolution (CEDR). He also directs the EUIPO Mediation Team.

He studied law at the Universities of Athens (GR), Strasbourg (FR) and Freiburg i. Br. (DE) and political sciences at Athens University and the Institute for Post-Graduate European Studies (IHEE) in Strasbourg. He has successively worked as an attorney-at-law specialising in IP and as a référendaire at the EU Court of Justice (Luxembourg) and has been a member of the Legal service of the European Commission and European Patent Attorney. Dr Margellos has also been law professor at the Jules Verne University in Amiens, France. He has published and lectured extensively on trade mark and international commercial law matters, European law, private international law, civil and commercial law. He recently was the co-editor of the Book “Mediation: Creating Value in International Intellectual Property Disputes”.

Gordon Humphreys holds an LL.B (Bachelor of Laws) from the University of Buckingham (UK), an LL.M (Master of Laws) from the University of Wales, Cardiff, and a master’s degree in economic law from the University of Liège (Belgium), as well as a postgraduate diploma from the University of Alicante (Spain). He qualified as a barrister of England and Wales and was admitted to the Brussels Bar as a lawyer in 1994. Following a period in private practice in Luxembourg, he joined the Legal Department of the EUIPO in 1997, acting in several of the earliest trade mark cases before the (then) Court of First Instance. He was head of the register service from 2002-2005 before taking up his duties as a member of the Boards of Appeal in December 2005, handling both trade mark and design cases. Since September 2014, he has been chairman of the Fifth Board of Appeal.

He has published a number of articles on trade marks and designs in leading IP journals and is a contributing author in Hasselblatt’s Community Design Regulation — A Commentary (C.H. Beck Hart Nomos, 2018), as well as being a regular speaker at conferences.

He is also qualified as a mediator with the Chartered Institute of Arbitrators and serves as a mediator with the EUIPO Boards of Appeal Alternative Dispute Resolution Service. He co-authored Mediation: Creating Value in International Intellectual Property Disputes (Wolters Kluwer, 2018).

Daoming Zhang is assistant director for the illicit markets area at INTERPOL’s Organized and Emerging Crime Directorate, leading INTERPOL’s Illicit Goods and Global Health Program and Environmental Security Program. As a high-ranking Chinese police officer with more than 25 years of law enforcement experience, Mr Zhang has been working with INTERPOL for almost 11 years in different positions, previously as drugs coordinator, assistant director for Asia and the South Pacific, and regional specialised officer. Mr Zhang holds a master’s degree in law and is visiting professor at the Chinese People’s Public Security University.

As Dean of the Ageno School of Business and the School of Accounting, Dr. Gordon Swartz is responsible for Golden Gate University’s eighteen graduate business programmes, including one of the San Francisco Bay area’s largest MBA programmes, as well as custom executive education programmes for high-tech firms. Earlier in his career, Swartz served as the associate dean of executive education at Georgetown University, where he led the design and launch of the school’s Global Executive MBA programmes, and as the deputy dean of the MBA programme at the London Business School, where he was also an assistant professor of marketing.

Swartz’s articles and case studies have been published in distinguished journals, including the Harvard Business Review, Sloan Management Review, Journal of Service Research and Journal of Marketing. His current research focuses on adaptive leadership in high technology firms and technology adoption in business operations.

Swartz holds a doctorate in business administration from Harvard University, a high technology MBA from Northeastern University, and bachelor’s degrees in nuclear engineering and political science from MIT. In his consulting work, Swartz was a vice president of MarketBridge, Inc., where he led major marketing, sales strategy and transformation efforts for Fortune Global 500 companies.

Dr. Klaus Grabinski was appointed as a judge to the Federal Court of Justice (Bundesgerichtshof), the Supreme Court of Civil and Criminal law matters in Germany, in 2009. At the Federal Court of Justice, he is allocated to the 10th Civil Division (X. Zivilsenat), which has inter alia jurisdiction in patent dispute matters. Before, he was a presiding judge at the District Court in Düsseldorf in one of the two patent litigation divisions (2001-2009), a judge at the Court of Appeal in Düsseldorf (2000-2001), a legal researcher at the Federal Court of Justice (1997-2000) and a judge at the District Court in Düsseldorf (1992-1997).

Dr. Grabinski studied law at the Universities of Trier, Geneva and Cologne. He is co-author of a commentary on the European Patent Convention (Benkard, Europäisches Patentübereinkommen, 3rd edition) and a commentary on the German Patent Act (Benkard, Patentgesetz, 11th edition) and the author of articles concerning patent law, civil procedure and international private law.

Dr. Grabinski is a member of an expert panel that is advising the Preparatory Committee of the future Unified Patent Court on different work streams. He is a frequent speaker at national and international conferences on patent law.

Mark Friedländer has 23 years of experience both as a lawyer and in several in-house positions. Since 2014, he has been a manager at Toyota Motor Europe’s legal and compliance division, based in Brussels. As such, he is responsible for overall commercial legal support to Toyota’s businesses in Europe. Currently, IT law, IP law and business law are his main fields of expertise.

Mark graduated from the University of Amsterdam and holds a Master in Laws.

Manuel Desantes holds a Professor’s Chair at the Faculty of Law of the University of Alicante since 1992. He was vice president of the European Patent Office (Munich) from 2001 to 2008, a member of the Legal Service of the European Commission between 1998 and 2001 and vice chancellor and acting rector of the University of Alicante from 1996 to 1998. In 1994 he founded the Magister Lvcentinvs (master in intellectual and industrial property) at the University of Alicante.

He is currently a member of counsel of ELZABURU, a member of the Foundation Eisenhower, a member of the Board of the UNICEF Committee for the Valencian Community, a member of the Board of Trustees of the Provincial Council of Alicante (ADDA) and a member of the Advisory Council of the Alberto Elzaburu Foundation, among others. He has published seven books and more than one hundred research papers and delivered a full course at The Hague Academy of International Law in July 2019.

James Nurton is a writer and editor specialising in intellectual property law, business and policy. From January 1996 to October 2017, he worked for Managing Intellectual Property, latterly as managing editor responsible for all the editorial content in Managing IP magazine, managingip.com, on social media and at events. During his time at Managing IP, Mr Nurton launched and developed the global survey of IP firms, now known as IP STARS, and the annual Awards Dinners, which he often hosted. He also launched and edited the INTA Daily News, AIPPI Congress News and AIPLA Daily Report newspapers, and contributed more than 100 ‘James Nurton interviews’ to the EUIPO’s own Alicante News.

James is now editorial consultant for MARQUES, responsible for the HouseMARQUES newsletter, Class 46 and Class 99 blogs, social media and other content. He has also recently written or edited reports published by Bloomsbury Professional, IP Watchdog, IAM/WTR, WIPR and WIPO, among others. He regularly takes part in events hosted by the EPO, EUIPO, Fordham IP Institute and other organisations. James is a founding partner of Lextel Partners, providing editorial and thought leadership services to law firms and other professional service providers.

Takaaki Yamamoto is currently a member of the Artificial Intelligence Project Team at the Japan Patent Office (JPO), having been appointed to this position in January 2019.

He started his career at the JPO in 2008, and has since worked as a patent examiner in the mechanical technology field.

In addition, he was appointed deputy director of the policy planning office of the administrative affairs division in 2018.

Ursula Schildt graduated from the University of Helsinki. Between 1989 and 1998 she worked in private practice with a law firm in Finland, practising commercial and IP Law. She trained on the bench at Lovisa Court in Finland in 1990 and received an additional legal qualification (Solicitor of England and Wales) in 1996. She joined the EUIPO in 1998 and acted as a head of unit in the (former) Opposition Division, before moving to the human resources area of the EUIPO in 2002. After 5 years in human resources, she moved to the Quality Management Department as a business area manager dealing with the core business processes up until 2011. She was head of service in Finance Department dealing with budget, control and procurement matters before moving to Academy in 2014 first, as head of service for learning solutions and projects, and then as director of the EUIPO Academy.

Since July 2018, Ms Schildt is the director of the Digital Transformation Department.

With almost 30 years of trade mark law experience, Ms Cooney-Porter is the senior trademark policy advisor to the undersecretary and Director of the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO). Ms Cooney-Porter advises the director and other senior leaders on a wide variety of trade mark policy issues.

Ms Cooney-Porter started her career as a trade mark examining attorney at the USPTO. She excelled in her career and worked in the Office of the Assistant Commissioner for Trademarks, and was awarded a Bronze Medal by the U.S. Department of Commerce for superior federal service.

Prior to rejoining the USPTO in 2018, Ms Cooney-Porter was a principal at Muncy, Geissler, Olds & Lowe, P.C. advising clients on how to enhance, secure, leverage and enforce their marks and brand portfolio. She was also a managing partner at Oblon, McClelland, Maier & Neustadt, P.C., where she managed the trade mark and copyright practice groups and represented clients before the Trademark Trial and Appeal Board (TTAB).

During her tenure in private practice, Ms Cooney-Porter served a three-year term as an appointee to the USPTO’s Trademark Public Advisory Committee (TPAC) where she advised the undersecretary of commerce for intellectual property and the director of the USPTO on matters relating to trade mark policies, goals, performance, budget and user fees.

Ms Cooney-Porter has a bachelor’s degree from Vanderbilt University and a J.D.(Juris Doctor) from the Catholic University of America, Columbus School of Law. She is an active member of numerous organisations such as INTA, AIPLA, ABA and the District of Columbia Bar.

Ms Cooney-Porter resides in McLean, Virginia with her husband, David, and twin teenage daughters.

Dae Soon Jung became the Director of International Education Division at the Korean Intellectual Property Office (KIPO) in February 2019. He passed the Public Administration Examination in 1999 with his educational background in Business Administration. He worked at the Ministry of Information and Communication for 8 years (2000-2008), and was later transferred to KIPO. He has 21 years of working experience as a public official in a variety of areas including IP commercialisation, IP valuation, IP human resources and international cooperation. He has interest in effective IP commercialisation of small and medium enterprises and international cooperation for bridging the Intellectual Property Gap. He graduated with a bachelor’s degree of Business Administration in Korea University, and with a master’s degree of Business Administration in University of Michigan. He also worked as an IP Attaché at the Permanent Mission of the Republic of Korea in Geneva, taking part in the negotiation and discussion of a variety of issues in the World Intellectual Property Organization.

Russell Pangborn is a partner at the Seed IP Law Group in Seattle, Washington State, USA. He is head of the firm’s trade mark practice and focuses his practice on trade marks, unfair competition and internet policy law matters. He has 25 years of experience in the trade mark industry, having served as the global head of trade marks at Microsoft, a senior trademark attorney at Intel, the CEO of Marksmen, and as an attorney with the law firm, Fulwider Patton.

He has served on INTA’s Board of Directors and as a member of its Executive Committee. He has held officer positions for the organisation, has been a member of numerous committees over the years, and is presently serving on the Government Officials Training Committee. He is also active with ICANN, serving on its Intellectual Property Constituency and has previously participated in the Implementation Recommendation Team as one of 18 legal professionals selected to propose the trade mark protection mechanisms to be implemented in connection with ICANN’s expansion of new, generic, top-level domains.

Mr Pangborn is a frequent speaker at IP associations and CLE events. He is the co-founder of the annual McCarthy Symposium, ‘Trademark Law and Its Challenges.’ As an active leader in the industry, he has been recognised on many ‘top’ lists. He received his A.B. (Bachelor of Arts) from Stanford University and his J.D.(Juris Doctor) from Hastings College of the Law, San Francisco. He lives in Redmond, Washington, with his wife and three children.

Hartmut Esslinger is an internationally-renowned industrial designer, living in Los Gatos, California. He was the first designer to bring human-driven, high-touch design to the world of complex hardware and software technology. Mr Esslinger founded Frog Design in his native Germany in 1969 and expanded it to the United States in 1982. Together with his partner and wife, Patricia Roller, he built the company into the world’s most prominent and successful strategic design agency. Esslinger has worked with prestigious global companies, including Sony, Apple, Louis Vuitton, SAP, Lufthansa and Microsoft, and in some cases, has helped them convert their technological competences and entrepreneurial desire into emotionally appealing global brands.

Mary Wong is the vice president for Strategic Community Operations, Planning and Engagement at the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names & Numbers (ICANN, where she is a member of the team managing ICANN’s global policy work in coordinating the internet domain name system. Prior to joining ICANN, she was a tenured professor of law with the University of New Hampshire School of Law (formerly the Franklin Pierce Law Center), a top-ten-ranked intellectual property law school in the United States, where she was the founding director of its flagship applied research centre for intellectual property and chair for the Global Intellectual Property Partnerships and the Graduate Intellectual Property Program.

Ms Wong was previously special counsel to the international law firm of Morrison & Foerster LLP, where, as a member of the firm’s Technology Transactions Group, she advised American, European and Asian clients on corporate, cross-border and technology licencing transactions. She has also been a law professor in her native Singapore.

She holds an LL.B (Bachelor of Laws) degree(with Honours) from the National University of Singapore and an LL.M (Master of Laws) degree from the University of Cambridge, England. In addition to her professional work, she has served in a number of public service roles in the United States and Singapore and is a frequent speaker at academic and industry conferences around the world.

Harrie Temmink is currently deputy head of the Intellectual Property and Fight Against Counterfeiting Unit at the Directorate-General for Internal Market, Industry, Entrepreneurship and SMEs (DG GROW) of the European Commission.

He has a Dutch law degree and a Spanish language and literature degree from the University of Utrecht (The Netherlands). He joined the European Commission in 2003 and worked at the Industrial Property Unit of DG Internal Market and Services between 2003 and 2008, and then as a member of the cabinet of Mrs Meglena Kuneva, European Commissioner for Consumer Affairs (2008-2010), and as deputy head of the Online and Postal Services Unit (2011-2014) and the Public Interest Services Unit (2014-2017). Previously, he worked as a lecturer in public economic law at the University of Utrecht; as an advisor at the Netherlands Competition Authority and as a legal secretary to the Court of Justice of the European Union.

Daniel Dougherty is a senior director with Alibaba Group’s Global IP Enforcement team. Prior to Alibaba, he was vice president and general counsel for the consumer electronics company, Monster, Inc. Prior to joining Monster, he was associate general counsel and senior director at eBay,Inc., where he managed a global team with responsibility for eBay’s global trade mark portfolio, trade mark enforcement, and third party IP dispute management including the VeRO programme. Mr Dougherty also served as a legal director at Yahoo! Inc. with the copyright and trade mark teams, and his responsibilities included management of Yahoo!’s DMCA programme, trade mark and keyword advertising disputes, and management of the Yahoo! global trade mark and domain portfolios.

Mr Dougherty was named one of the 25 most influential people in the United States in intellectual property by The American Lawyer, and graduated from the University of California, Hastings College of the Law in San Francisco. He has spoken widely on matters of intellectual property.

José Checa is currently the general counsel of brand and marketing properties at Nestlé and has responsibilities for overseeing the legal protection of Nestlé’s brand and design assets across all the company’s businesses and geographies.

Before joining Nestlé, Mr Checa was IP counsel EMEA for DuPont, where he held various responsibilities, including the managing of DuPont’s nutrition and health trade marks and copyrights and commercial and corporate legal support to Spain and Portugal. Prior to DuPont, he worked as legal adviser to the International Standards Organization (ISO) Central Secretariat, leading the legal department and providing legal advice to the Secretary-General on standard-setting matters. He has also worked at the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) and in a Spanish and US law firms.

Mr Checa is a qualified Spanish lawyer with a master’s degree in intellectual property from the University of Alicante (Spain), a diploma in EU competition law from King’s College London and a postgraduate certificate in mediation from the Instituto Superior de Estudios Psicológicos (ISEP). He is also a mediator with the WIPO Arbitration and Mediation Center. He has also mediated in family and labour disputes.

Christopher Oldknow joined the Amazon Europe, Middle East and Africa (EMEA) public policy team in November 2018, focusing on issues relating to IP. Prior to joining Amazon, he spent 5 years as a director at Elipe Limited, a global consultancy firm working with brands on IP and technology policy issues, as well as advising the International Chamber of Commerce’s Business Action to Stop Counterfeiting and Piracy group on intermediaries. He was formerly an interim vice president of anti-piracy at NBCUniversal and IP enforcement policy counsel at Microsoft. He chairs the data protection committee of INTA and is a former chair of the Anti-Counterfeiting Group (ACG) in the UK. He is a member of the EUIPO Observatory expert groups on cooperation with intermediaries and on international cooperation.

Paul Maier joined the EUIPO in May 1995, as chief advisor to the President of the Office.

From 2000 until 2005 he was responsible for the EUIPO’s preparations in the lead up to the enlargement of the EU and the coming into force of the Regulation on Community Designs.

He was nominated President of the Boards of Appeal by the Council of Ministers in December 2005 and confirmed for a second mandate in May 2010. Since January 2013, Paul Maier has been director of the EUIPO Observatory. The department incorporates not only the EU Observatory on IPR Infringements, but also the service of the Chief Economist who is in charge of economic studies.

Amaryllis Verhoeven is head of the Intellectual Property Unit at the European Commission (Directorate-General for Internal Market, Industry, Entrepreneurship and SMEs (DG GROW)). She joined the European Commission in 2001 and has worked on a wide range of issues related to the building and functioning of the Single Market, as well as on energy policy issues.

Ms Verhoeven has a Ph.D. in law and political theory and holds an LL.M. (Master of Laws) degree from Harvard Law School. She lectures at the Law Faculty of the KU Leuven (Belgium) and has written a book and various academic articles. Before joining the European Commission, she worked as an attorney in the offices of Cleary Gottlieb Steen & Hamilton.

Daren Tang has been the Chief Executive of the Intellectual Property Office of Singapore (IPOS) since 15 November 2015. Under his leadership, IPOS has evolved from an IP registry and regulator into an innovation agency that uses its IP expertise and networks to help drive Singapore’s future growth.

Mr Tang holds key positions in several national-level IP and innovation-related committees. He was elected chairperson of the World Intellectual Property Organization’s Standing Committee on Copyright and Related Rights (a first for a Singaporean), where he leads discussions on developments to the global copyright regime.

Previously, Mr Tang led IP negotiations for Singapore in major free trade agreements. In particular, Mr Tang was chairman of, and responsible for, the IP negotiations among the 12 negotiating parties of the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) agreement.

Prior to joining IPOS, Mr Tang was senior state counsel with the international affairs division of the Attorney-General’s Chambers. Mr Tang holds a LL.B (Bachelor in Laws — 2nd Upper, Hons) from the Faculty of Law of the National University of Singapore, and a LL.M. (Master of Laws — with distinction) from the Georgetown University Law Centre, where he was a Fellow of the Institute of International Economic Law.

João Negrão, holds a Master of Laws degree in international law and a university degree in international relations. He also holds a high level degree in public administration management from the National Institute of Administration and has completed a number of IP-related courses, namely a general course on IP at the WIPO Worldwide Academy and a specialised course on the practice and functioning of the IP system in the USA given by the USPTO.

Before joining the EUIPO, Mr Negrão held different positions in the Portuguese public administration, in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs/General Directorate for EU Affairs, in the Presidency of the Council of Ministers and in the Ministry of Justice/National Institute of Industrial Property (INPI). In 2001, he joined INPI in the international relations cabinet, becoming the head of the cabinet in 2004. In 2008, he was appointed director of International Relations and Promotion of Innovation at INPI.

In 2010, he joined the EUIPO as head of the President’s Cabinet. Since July 2011, he has held the position of director of the International Cooperation and Legal Affairs Department of the EUIPO.

In Sik Jeong, born in 1966, became the director of the Trademark Examination Policy Division at Korean Intellectual Property Office (KIPO) in June 2019. With an educational background in public administration, he passed the public administration examination in 1996. In 1997, he started his first professional post at the Ministry of Government Administration and later transferred to KIPO. He has 23 years of experience working in a variety of positions, mostly being in charge of intellectual property policy relations, particularly from 1997 to 2010. He also served as deputy director of the budget division, the performance management division and of the education planning division. In 2010, he joined a two-year on-the-job training programme at Fisher Adams Kelly Law Firm located in Australia, before returning to KIPO and being appointed as director of the administration management division. From 2014 to 2017, he was an IP Attaché at the Embassy of the Republic of Korea to the Kingdom of Belgium and the European Union. Upon completion of his three-year professional experience overseas, he returned to KIPO as an office spokesperson and continued his career serving as the director of the industrial property policy division in 2018.

Michael Fröhlich is a fully qualified German lawyer with a Ph.D. and a postgraduate law degree in intellectual property. Serving in increasingly responsible positions in the IP area since 2000, he is inter alia responsible for the implementation of the unitary patent package and for strengthening the legal framework of the global patent system, including substantive and procedural patent law harmonisation, the further development of the European patent system and the procedures and practice under the Patent Cooperation Treaty (PCT).

Prior to joining the European Patent Office, he worked as senior director for EU Intellectual Property and Strategy at BlackBerry, where he managed a wide range of IP matters with a particular focus on issues at the intersection of IP and competition law in the context of standard-setting initiatives, licensing, and litigation. Before working at BlackBerry, Mr Fröhlich helped shape Nokia’s IP rights and standards position and he also acted as the head of legal affairs at the European Telecommunications Standards Institute (ETSI), where he shaped ETSI’s IP rights policy. He started his career in the Düsseldorf office of Preu Bohlig & Partner, where he was active in the fields of contentious and pre-contentious IP matters, with a particular focus on patents.

He regularly writes and lectures on IP issues and has held various positions on the committees of different associations, such as the AIPPI, LES or GSMA. He is bilingual in German and French, business fluent in English and has a basic knowledge of Portuguese.

Juan Lozano is currently the director general of the Mexican Institute of Industrial Property, where he promotes an active strategy for expanding access to, and ensuring the protection of, industrial property, as well as simplifying processes and improving the service for creators and entrepreneurs in Mexico. He has a law degree from the Universidad Iberoamericana and was a Fulbright Scholar at the University of Maryland, USA.

Mr Lozano has a career spanning more than 25 years in various agencies of the Mexican federal government, including the Mexican Social Security Institute (IMSS), the Ministry of the Interior, the National Institute of Migration (INM) and PEMEX (the state-owned petroleum company).

On an international level, he was elected and served as secretary general of the Inter-American Conference on Social Security. He has also been a senior executive in global companies where he has held management positions related to social, financial, communication and strategic planning aspects.

Paula Adamson is the general manager of trade marks and designs for the Intellectual Property Office of Australia. Prior to joining IP Australia, she held senior management positions across a diverse range of public and private sector agencies including defence, Fujitsu and Ernst and Young. She was the general manager of people and communications in IP Australia before moving to trade marks and designs in 2017. In her current role, she is leading the transformation programme for the group to ensure they are well positioned for 2030.

Ms Adamson holds a master’s degree in management of strategic studies and has taught human resource development and international human resource management at the University of Canberra.

Binying Wang, a national of China, joined the International Bureau of the World Intellectual Property Organisation (WIPO) in April 1992 and was appointed deputy director general responsible for the Brands and Designs Sector in December 2009. She was reappointed for a second mandate in December 2014.

This sector is responsible for the development of international law within the framework of the WIPO Standing Committee on the Law of Trademarks, Industrial Designs and Geographical Indications (SCT) as well as for the administration of the international registration systems for trade marks (Madrid Agreement and Protocol), industrial designs (Hague Agreement) and appellations of origin (Lisbon Agreement).

Ms Wang’s academic background is in English, communication, transportation and law. She graduated from the Zhongnan University in Changsha in China in the 1970s, and holds a Masters in Law degree, including industrial property, from the University of California Berkeley School of Law in the USA. She was also awarded a diploma in American law from the Columbia Law School in New York.

Prior to joining WIPO, Ms Wang worked in the Chinese Ministry of Communication and Transportation from 1975 to 1980, during which time she was stationed in the Republic of Tanzania and Zambia. She later served in the State General Administration for Industry and Commerce (SAIC), and was in charge of the Department for Registration and Supervision of Foreign Company and Trade-names, and the China Trademark Service, an institution dealing with trade mark services under the SAIC until 1992.

Tomoki Sawai is currently director general of the Patent and Design Examination Department of the Japan Patent Office (JPO), having been appointed to this position in June 2016. He started his career at the JPO in 1987 and has since worked as a patent examiner and an administrative judge in the mechanical engineering field. In addition, he was appointed as director of the Administrative Affairs Division, the International Affairs Division and the Information Technology Planning Office. Furthermore, he was appointed as director for IP in the New York Center of the Japan External Trade Organization (JETRO) and worked as liaison and chief representative of the JPO for North and South America.

Shira Perlmutter serves as a policy advisor to the Under Secretary of Commerce for Intellectual Property, overseeing the United States Patent and Trademark Office’s teams of domestic and international IP policy experts, international education and training programmes, global advocacy (through the IP Attaché programme), and the Office of the Chief Economist.

Prior to joining the USPTO, Ms Perlmutter held the positions of executive vice president for global legal policy at the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI); vice president and associate general counsel for intellectual property policy at Time Warner; consultant on copyright and e-commerce at the World Intellectual Property Organization; and associate register for policy and international affairs at the U.S. Copyright Office. She was previously a law professor at The Catholic University of America, after practicing law in New York City. She received her A.B. (Bachelor of Arts degree) from Harvard University and her J.D.(Juris Doctor) from the University of Pennsylvania.

Peter Kovács is the head of the Intellectual Property and Public Procurement Unit at the Directorate-General for Trade (DG Trade) of the European Commission.

He has extensive experience in trade and customs matters, in security policy and in international relations. Before joining DG Trade, he built his career in the Directorate-General for Taxation and Customs Union of the European Commission, at NATO International Staff and at the Hungarian Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

Pavel Svoboda is an associate professor of EU law at Charles University in Prague and a former Member of the European Parliament and chairman of its Legal Affairs Committee (2014-19), former minister, president of the Czech Legislative Council, deputy foreign minister, ambassador and Permanent Representative of the Czech Republic to the Council of Europe. Pavel is also a member of the Czech Bar Association.

After his studies at Charles University in Prague and a postgraduate diploma D.E.A. (Diplôme des études approfondies) from the University of Social Sciences, Toulouse, France, Pavel’s career began in the copyright area (Czech collecting society, OSA, and publishing house, Supraphon). His habilitation thesis was also copyrighted and had an EU-based theme (the influence of copyright territoriality on the development of EU law).

Dr. Xinghao Wang is a director of Alibaba Group’s Global IP Enforcement team.

Dr. Wang joined the company in January 2015, and works with international brands and retail partners, industry associations, government regulators, law enforcement and other organisations to advance Alibaba Group’s IP protection efforts. Before joining Alibaba, he was an IP attorney at Hamre, Schumann, Muller and Larson in Minneapolis and focused on helping US companies protect their IP rights in China.

Jan de Visser is senior director at Philips Intellectual Property & Standards, responsible for Philips’ overall brand protection management, with a specific focus on the PHILIPS word mark and the Philips shield emblem. He started his career in the Philips IP department in 1985 as trade mark counsel, and gained extensive experience working with larger trade mark portfolios on an international level, such as in due diligence situations for divestments or acquisitions.

Between 1998 and 2006, Mr de Visser was head of the Philips IP department in Singapore, in a regional function aimed at curbing counterfeit activities in Asia and providing IP support to the Philips businesses in the Asia-Pacific countries. From 2006 until early 2008, he worked as patent portfolio manager for domestic appliances in Philips, then from 2008, he was IP counselling manager for Philips Consumer Lifestyle (comprising of mainly consumer electronics and domestic appliances), responsible for IP business implementation and IP assertions. In 2014, his scope also included IP support for corporate R&D. Since January 2015, Mr de Visser has managed Philips’ worldwide brand protection. He has degrees in economics and law. He is married and has two children.

Yutaka Hasegawa has headed Sony Design’s team since 2014.

Sony has always been at the forefront of design and became one of the first companies to create an in-house creative studio. Since its inception in 1961, Sony Design has forged its reputation as a leading and award-winning global design team. Today, its value and contribution has expanded beyond pure product design, with a growing business portfolio in new domains such as the medical, financial, education and entertainment fields. Designers strive to transform functional value and innovation into emotional experience, this encompasses what is referred to as the ‘Perceptual Experience project’.

He has also served on the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry’s (METI’s) Study Group on the relation between industrial competitiveness and designs.

Angie Hankins is the general counsel and corporate secretary for the Samsung Strategy and Innovation Center (SSIC) in Menlo Park, California. She is responsible for the corporate governance, intellectual property and legal strategy for SSIC. Ms Hankins also provides advice and negotiates strategic partnerships and investments in early and growth stage companies engaged in disruptive technology in the United States, Europe and Israel. Prior to joining SSIC in 2015, Ms Hankins was a partner in the New York office of Stroock & Stroock & Lavan LLP, where her practice focused on intellectual property.

Ms Hankins has a Juris Doctor from the University of Virginia School of Law and a Bachelor of Engineering in electrical engineering from the Stevens Institute of Technology. She is registered in-house counsel in the state of California; admitted to practice in the states of New Jersey and New York, and before the Supreme Court of the United States, the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, the Federal District Courts of New Jersey and the Southern and Eastern Districts of New York. Ms Hankins is also a registered patent attorney with the US Patent and Trademark Office and formerly served in the United States Air Force.

Isabella Fu is an associate general counsel at Microsoft Corporation, where she leads the team of attorneys responsible for patent prosecution, counselling and dispute resolution. She joined Microsoft in 2003, and until recently was responsible for the worldwide IP litigation for the company. Before joining Microsoft, Isabella was director of litigation at Intel Corporation. She practiced at Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati and Orrick Herrington & Sutcliffe before moving in-house. She has an A.B.(Bachelor of Arts) degree in Physics from Harvard-Radcliffe College and a J.D. (Juris Doctor degree) from Columbia University.

Piotr Stryszowski is a senior economist in the Public Governance Directorate of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). He joined the OECD in 2006, and during his tenure he has been involved in numerous projects in the area of innovation, intellectual property rights and the information economy. This includes research on the economic impact of counterfeiting and piracy, piracy of digital content, copyright in the age of the internet, innovation in the software industry and knowledge markets and networks. His responsibilities also include presenting results to a wide range of audiences including senior policymakers, business representatives and academics. Since 2015, Mr Stryszowski has been managing OECD research on the economic impact of trade in IP-infringing goods.

Mr Stryszowski graduated with a Ph.D. in economics from Tilburg University (the Netherlands). His academic research covered the economic aspects of innovation, growth theory, intangible assets and labour economics.

Born in Wrocław, Poland, and a dual Polish/Danish national, Nathan Wajsman was educated at the University of Aarhus in Denmark and later undertook graduate studies in the USA, earning a Ph.D. in economics from the University of Florida and an MBA from Temple University, Philadelphia.

Dr. Wajsman was named Chief Economist of the EUIPO in May 2011. He has been with the agency since 2007, previously working in finance and quality management.

Prior to joining the EUIPO, he spent 20 years working in the private sector. A stint as a forecasting analyst at an electric utility company in Florida was followed by a career in telecommunications and finance in the USA and in several European countries, including positions with AT&T in the USA and Belgium, the Swiss Reinsurance Company in Zurich and Claranet Benelux, a managed services provider in the Netherlands.

Julio Laporta has a law degree and an LL.M. (Master of Laws) in IP Law (Magister Lucentinvs, Spain). Before joining the EUIPO, he worked in the private sector, first as an IP lawyer in a Barcelona-based firm and, then, as an in-house IP lawyer at Danone, S.A.

He joined the EUIPO in 2000 as an examiner taking decisions on trade marks and defending the EUIPO before the court in Luxembourg. In 2011, he became head of the Legal Practice Service, responsible for the update of the EUIPO’s Guidelines for examination. Since 2014, he is deputy director of the Operations Department, the EUIPO’s core business department in charge of the examination and registration of European Union trade marks and Community designs.

He is in charge of strategic and learning issues, as well as the coordination of activities within the department; he is also programme manager for two initiatives, one in the area of quality and another in the area of IT development. Finally, he is the chair of Knowledge Circle Quality, a working group in charge of quality assurance.

Francis Gurry is an Australian lawyer who has served as Director General of the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) since 1 October 2008.

He holds law degrees from the University of Melbourne, a Ph.D. from the University of Cambridge and is an honorary professor of, and holds honorary doctorates from, universities in a wide range of countries.

He is the author of a number of publications, one of which has become a standard legal text in the UK and is published by Oxford University Press as Gurry on Breach of Confidence.

Mr Gurry speaks English and French.

Jorma Hanski is responsible for the Patents and Trademarks Department in the Finnish Patent and Registration Office. He is also chairperson of the Management Board of the EUIPO.

After graduating from the University of Helsinki in 1986, Mr Hanski worked as a legal counsel in the performing rights society in Finland, active in collective rights management. In 1990, Jorma joined a major Finnish corporation working first in the legal service and, after completing his postgraduate studies, moving on to occupy various positions on strategic planning and corporate restructuring projects. Before joining the Finnish Patent and Registration Office in 2013, Mr Hanski was the CEO of a leading Finnish patent law firm for 5 years.

Mr Hanski has extensive experience in restructuring and transforming organisations and operating processes. He has a special interest in new service development and creating ways of doing things in close relationship with the customers.

Dr. Wonjoo Park currently serves as the Commissioner of the Korean Intellectual Property Office (KIPO). A graduate of Seoul National University with a bachelor’s degree in economics and a master’s degree in public policy, Dr. Park received a Ph.D. in economics from Indiana University Bloomington in the USA.

After being a member of the civil service, Dr. Park began his career as a deputy director at the Ministry of Energy and Resources in 1987. He held leadership positions as director at the Ministry of Commerce, Industry and Energy (MOCIE) in various areas, including the resources policy division, planning and budget division, industrial technology workforce, standards and design, design and brand, etc.

Dr. Park was then appointed as secretary to the Minister of MOCIE in 2006, as well as director in the Office of the President in 2007, before going on to serve at the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy (MOTIE) as director general and deputy minister, where he took a leading role in a number of important areas such as managing policies on energy sources and industry. Notably, in 2016, he served as secretary to the President once again in the Office of the President.

Throughout his career, Dr. Park has gained ample international experience while being dispatched to the Institute of Developing Economies in Japan and the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in the US and as minister counsellor at the Embassy of Korea in Japan.

David Franklyn has served as a consultant and expert witness in numerous intellectual property (IP) cases, on behalf of multiple, technology industry clients. He has designed, conducted and analysed trade mark and other consumer perception surveys, counselled clients on USPTO matters (including registration and branding advice), drafted licence and settlement agreements and prepared counsel for oral arguments and litigation strategy in a wide variety of IP matters.

Since 2000, he has been director of the J. Thomas McCarthy Institute for IP and Technology Law, and director of the Center for Empirical Studies of Trademark Law. He has taught courses in patent law, trade mark law, copyright law, international IP law, IP survey and theory.

Professor Franklyn joined the faculty of Golden Gate University in 2018, a joint appointment between the School of Law and the Ageno School of Business.

Kijoong Song has been an international negotiation expert in the Multi-lateral Affairs Team at the Korean Intellectual Property Office (KIPO) since September 2008. He has also worked as an associate at YOON & KIM, LLP from January 2008 to August 2008. He has experience as an associate at SIM & PARK, LLP from September to December 2007 and also worked as an intern at the Korean Immigration Service of New York from September to December 2006.

Kijoong Song graduated as a Juris Doctor from the Thomas M. Cooley Law School, in Lansing, Michigan, in January 2007. He also graduated with a bachelor of arts in English and English Literature from the Chonbuk National University of South Korea in February 2001.

Christian Archambeau is Executive Director of the European Union Intellectual Property Office (EUIPO) since 1 October 2018. He has been part of the Office’s top management team since 1 December 2010, when he was appointed as Deputy Executive Director by the Council of the European Union.

A native of Belgium, he graduated from the Université libre de Bruxelles as a civil engineer and worked in construction in the Middle East before moving to the European Space Agency in facility management. Prior to joining the EUIPO, he held a number of senior positions in the European Patent Office in infrastructure, administration and human resources.