Patents, standards and innovation: securing Europe’s competitive edge

Session 1: Improving transparency at the interface between patents and standards

Pere Arque-Castells, Stream Lead Legal and Innovation Policies, EPO's Observatory on Patents and Technology
Pere Arque-Castells is an economist specialised in innovation with an extensive academic background, having served as an assistant professor in the Innovation Management and Strategy department at the University of Groningen, as a research associate at Northwestern University's Pritzker School of Law and as a a postdoctoral researcher at the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona. Pere holds an MSc in Economics from the London School of Economics and a PhD in Economics from the Universitat de Barcelona. His research on innovation economics has been featured in numerous peer-reviewed journals.

Kirti Gupta, Vice President at Cornerstone Research, Senior Advisor at CSIS
Kirti Gupta specialises in intellectual property and competition issues and provides expert testimony in complex business litigation. She has over 20 years of experience in the technology industry and holds a MS in Electrical Engineering from Purdue University and a PhD in Economics from UCSD. Prior to her work at CSIS, she spent over a decade as the Chief Economist at Qualcomm Inc., analysing IP portfolios for licensing and valuation. Prior to that, she served as a standards engineering expert.

Bowman Heiden, Director of the Center for Intellectual Property (CIP), University of Gothenburg
Bowman Heiden is the executive director at the Tusher Strategic Initiative for Technology Leadership at UC-Berkeley, the director of the Center for Intellectual Property at the University of Gothenburg and a fellow of the Classical Liberal Institute at New York University School of Law. His research is at the interdisciplinary interface of IP, innovation, competition and geopolitics.

Session 2: Recent developments in European SEP case law

Justus Baron, Director of BRELA and Research Director, Northwestern University Center on Law, Business, and Economics
Justus Baron is an academic researcher with 15 years of experience conducting economic research on patents and technology standards. He was a member of the European Commission’s Expert Group on Standard-Essential Patents and the lead researcher  assisting the Commission with the impact assessment of its proposed SEP Regulation. He has provided expert consultancy and testimony regarding the determination of FRAND licensing terms in SEP licensing negotiations and litigation. He also created FRANDLY, a research and SaaS solution that provides objective indicators for the FRAND value of SEP licenses in mobile telecommunications.

Rian Kalden, Presiding judge of the 2nd panel of the Court of Appeal, Unified Patent Court
Rian Kalden graduated from Leiden University and finished a master (including Intellectual and Industrial Property law at LSE) at London University. She started her career at the Amsterdam Bar with the law firm Stibbe, where she practised first in the intellectual property department and then in company law.

Rian has served as a judge in the Patent Chamber of the District Court of The Hague and as the as the head of its Intellectual Property Division. She has also served as vice president of the District Court of Haarlem and as a judge at The Hague’s Court of Appeal, heading the IP Division and continuing to work on patent litigation.

In 2023 she resigned from her appointment at the Benelux Court of Justice in view of her appointment as a legally qualified judge at the Court of Appeal of the Unified Patent Court, where she is presiding judge of the second panel and a member of the UPC Presidium. She is a frequent speaker at national and international conferences on patent law.

Richard Meade, Judge, High Court of England and Wales
Richard Meadewas called to the Bar in 1991 and practised intellectual property law.  In addition to domestic cases, he also appeared before the European Court of Justice and European Patent Office.  In September 2020, he was appointed as a full-time judge of the High Court of England and Wales. Since 2021 he has been the judge in charge of the Patents Court and intellectual property.

Session 3: Alternative Dispute Resolution for SEPs: recipes for success - Panel discussion

Robin Jacob, Professor, Faculty of Laws, University College London
Robin Jacob graduated from Trinity College Cambridge in 1963 with a degree in Natural Sciences.  He then simultaneously read for the Bar and a law degree. He was called to the Bar in 1965 by Gray’s Inn and received an LlB from the LSE Economics in 1967. He practiced as a barrister until 1993, specialising mainly in intellectual property, and was appointed Queen’s Counsel in 1981, a Judge of the High Court in 1993 and a Judge of the Court of Appeal in 2002.  In 2011 he was appointed Professor of Intellectual Property Law at University College London.  He is President of IPJA, the association of European Patent Judges.

Aleš Zalar, Director, Patent Mediation and Arbitration Centre, Unified Patent Court
Aleš Zalar studied law at the University of Ljubljana and has served as a judge and president of the District Court of Ljubljana,  president of the Slovenian Judges Association, and Minister of Justice and acting Minister of Home Affairs in Slovenia.He is currently the president of the European Centre for Dispute Resolution (ECDR) and a mediator, arbitrator and independent consultant in international rule of law reforms and dispute system design projects. He also supports the Court of Ukraine as a legal advisor and is the chairman of the Advisory Group of Experts in Ukraine.

Aleš is a member of various international institutions which include the EUIPO’s Mediation Centre Stakeholders Network, the International Institute for Justice Excellence and the Council of the European Law Institute. His contributions have been recognised and awarded by, among others, the Council of Europe and the US State Department.

Nicola Dagg, Partner, Kirkland & Ellis International LLP
Nicola Dagg is a partner in the intellectual property team at Kirkland & Ellis. She advises on complex patent litigation, global IP strategy and FRAND/SEP disputes across the life sciences and technology sectors. Her practice includes patent and product lifecycle planning; multinational enforcement and defence; and cutting-edge work in biosimilars, immunotherapies and diagnostics. Nicola is ranked by Chambers, The Legal 500 and IAM Patent 1000 and features in The Lawyer’s “Hot 100” and Managing IP’s “Top 250 Women in IP”.

Session 4: European competitiveness in a changing global landscape: the role of patents and standards in safeguarding technological sovereignty – Panel Discussion

Gabriele Mohsler, Vice President Patent Creation Management, Ericsson
Gabriele Mohsler is responsible for all patent creations and portfolio build-ups at Ericsson, overseeing several patent units comprising more than 200 people. She has held several management positions and was previously responsible for European litigation.

After studying electrical engineering at the Rheinisch Westfälische Technische Hochschule in Aachen she began her career as a patent attorney trainee within Alcatel. After passing the European Qualifying Exam, she took the German attorney exam while  working at Ericsson and began building their patent department in Germany.

Gabriele is president of Licensing Executive Society Germany and is an elected board member of The German Association for the Protection of Intellectual Property. She is also the curator of “Women in IP”.

Alexander Haertel, Cluster Lead Patents, Deutsche Telekom
Alexander Haertel joined Deutsche Telekom as the head of patents in 2022, after 18 years of extensive patent litigation experience as an attorney-at-law. His role encompasses any patent related licensing and patent policy issues, and he is responsible for all patent related litigation and prosecution. Alexander has conducted hundreds of cases before all major German courts, with a special emphasis on cross-border disputes in the telecommunication and automotive sector. He is an active lecturer, publishes regularly on patent law and is an author of an upcoming commentary on the Unified Patent Court.  He is co-chair of the Licensing Executive Society’s European Committee and a member of the Dispute Resolution Committee.

Steve Faraji, Head of Litigation, Licenses, Brand Protection, Volkswagen AG
Steve Faraji is a qualified German and European Patent Attorney specialising in SEPs and computer implemented inventions. Before joining Volkswagen, he worked at AUDI AG as Head of Patents Vehicle/Production and Chief IPR Policy Manager. Prior to that he worked on the prosecution and litigation of ICT patents for a major patent law firm in Munich.