ECTA will also bring a copyright focus to its Conference programme, with a dedicated session on “The EUIPO Knowledge Center and a Comparison Between EU and US Systems”, moderated by Anke Nordemann-Schiffel (NORDEMANN, Germany).Learn more about this session from Anke:Introduce yourself and your link to ECTA.I am Anke Nordemann-Schiffel, co-founder of NORDEMANN, a Berlin-based IP firm dealing with all areas of IP. I myself spend most of my working hours with trade marks and copyright matters both nationally, internationally and, of course, at the EUIPO. I am also the President of GRUR, the German Association for Intellectual Property Law, which is close to ECTA. One of my first international conferences was ECTA in London in 2005, when I was pregnant and my luggage only made it to London on the final day of the conference…Introduce the topic of your Conference session.I will be moderating this year´s copyright session entitled “The EUIPO Knowledge Center and a Comparison Between EU and US Sytems”. Do not let yourself be misled by the lengthy title - the panel of three plus myself will discuss recent EU and US case law on what makes a protected work as well as the EUIPO´s activities to strengthen copyright in the EU. Our first preparatory call was so filled with everyone´s ideas that we much overran the time I had planned with.Introduce the panel of your Conference session.The panel stars Véronique Delforge from the EUIPO, Daniël Jongsma, Hanken School of Economics, Helsinki, and Jacqueline Lesser from IceMiller, US.Véronique Delforge is an IP lawyer originally from Belgium with extensive experience. She has been working at the EUIPO as a Copyright legal expert since 2020. Before joining the Office, she worked on copyright matters at DG Connect at the European Commission for 4 years, as a lawyer in private practice for almost 8 years before then.Daniël Jongsma teaches at the Hanken School of Economics, Helsinki. He is a distinguished pan-European IP scholar with a focus on the process of harmonisation of intellectual property law in the EU, the interface between intellectual property law and fundamental rights, and more generally the impact of the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union on the national laws of the Member States.Jacqueline Lesser is a partner at IceMiller, Philadelphia, US, and the leader of the firm’s Advertising Group. Jackie has more than two decades of experience as an IP counselor, and litigator, with a focus on trade marks, copyrights, marketing, advertising and publicity rights. She litigates in federal courts throughout the US, before the Trademark Trial and Appeal Board (TTAB), the National Advertising Division of the Better Business Bureau (NAD), and the Copyright Claims Board (CCB).Why should Conference participants join your session, and at whom in particular will it be directed?Everyone active in IP should join the session. Copyright, designs and trade marks share so many overlaps, and the CJEU´s most recent cases on copyright protection for design objects and furniture will be fun and interesting to explore - much better than reading the actual decisions. The EUIPO´s copyright activities and projects are lesser known and thus a must to learn more about first-hand.Why should IP colleagues register for the ECTA Annual Conference?That is almost a no-brainer to me 😊 - the ECTA Annual Conference is one of the cornerstones of the IP year, and ECTA is so very relevant as an organization that no one should miss it. ECTA is a get-together of the IP community that is fun, inspiring and very welcoming to newbies and irregulars alike.To learn more about the Conference and register, please click here.

This year, ECTA brings something truly dynamic to its Conference programme: a live mock mediation, moderated by Judit Lantos (Lantos Law, Hungary) together with Mr. Sven Stürmann (President of the EUIPO BoA).Learn more about this unique session from Judit:1. Judit, introduce yourself and your link to ECTA.I am Judit Lantos, founder of Lantos Law in Budapest (Hungary), and I currently serve as Chair of the ECTA Mediation Committee. The Committee was established about 1,5 years ago, and I have had the privilege of serving as its first Chair since December 2024.Within ECTA, I have been actively involved for many years, including as former Chair of the WIPO-Link Committee, former Supervisory Board member, former member of the Harmonization Committee and local organizer of the Annual Conference in Budapest in 2017. These roles have allowed me to contribute to different aspects of ECTA’s work and to build strong connections within the IP community.The Mediation Committee is a young and very dynamic Committee, focused on promoting practical, business-oriented dispute resolution. As reflected in our mission, we aim to encourage dialogue, foster communication and support IP professionals in finding commercially meaningful solutions to disputes, beyond purely legal approaches.2. Introduce the topic of your Conference session.Our session is a live mock mediation, based on a realistic EU trade mark dispute between a well-established pharmaceutical company and a fast-growing start-up.Rather than discussing mediation in theory, we will demonstrate how it works in practice, from opening statements to negotiations and, ultimately, settlement. The session will show how legal arguments, business interests, and strategic considerations interact in a mediation setting and how parties can move from confrontation to a constructive solution.3. Introduce the panel of your Conference session.We have an outstanding and diverse panel bringing together practitioners and institutional expertise. The session will be co-moderated with Sven Stürmann, President of the Boards of Appeal at the EUIPO, and myself - we will also act as narrators, guiding the audience through the different phases of the mediation.The mediator will be Alexandra Crawcour, a leading mediator at the EUIPO Mediation Centre, who will lead the process and demonstrate how mediation works in practice. The parties will be represented by two teams:The Italian pharmaceutical company will be represented by Amanda Zahringer, a business advisor and dual-qualified solicitor in Ireland, acting as the client, and Ivett Paulovics, a dual-qualified lawyer in Italy and Hungary based in Milan and Vice-Chair of the ECTA Mediation Committee, acting as external counsel.The Irish start-up company will be represented by Carol Gormley of FRKelly, Ireland, and a member of the Irish Association of Patent and Trade Mark Attorneys (APTMA), together with Sean Cummings of Keltie, Ireland, also a member of APTMA. Together, they will bring the dispute to life in a highly interactive and engaging format.4. Why should Conference participants join your session, and at whom in particular will it be directed?This session is for anyone who would like to experience mediation in action rather than only hearing about it in theory. It will be particularly valuable for IP practitioners involved in proceedings before the EUIPO or national courts; for lawyers advising clients on selecting the most appropriate tools to resolve conflicts and achieve flexible, business-oriented solutions beyond the remedies typically available before courts; and for in-house counsels dealing with cross-border disputes. It will also be of particular interest to younger practitioners who wish to better understand negotiation dynamics and alternative dispute resolution.Considering that mediation is increasingly used in IP disputes, it is important for lawyers and IP practitioners to be familiar with this tool so that they can better support their clients as legal representatives in mediation procedures suggested by the authorities or by the adverse party.In this session, participants will gain practical insight into how parties articulate their positions and underlying interests, how a mediator facilitates dialogue and manages the process, and how creative, commercially meaningful solutions can emerge. The format is deliberately interactive and lively, offering an engaging and refreshing alternative to a traditional panel discussion.5. Why should IP colleagues register for the ECTA Annual Conference?The ECTA Annual Conference is one of the key events for IP professionals in Europe and beyond. It combines high-level substantive content with excellent networking opportunities and a strong sense of community.The Dublin programme offers a particularly rich and forward-looking agenda, covering key developments such as AI and its impact across different IP fields, ESG considerations in IP strategy, and sector-specific challenges in areas such as pharmaceuticals, cosmetics and green technologies. These topics reflect how quickly the IP landscape is evolving and how closely legal, technological and business considerations are now interconnected.In this context, mediation and alternative dispute resolution provide an important complementary perspective, offering tools to address complex, cross-border conflicts in a flexible and commercially meaningful way.Whether you are a long-standing ECTA member or attending for the first time, the Conference is a unique opportunity to stay up to date, exchange ideas and connect with colleagues from across Europe and beyond in a collaborative and engaging environment.To learn more about the Conference and register, please click here.

We wish to inform ECTA members that the EUIPO has published a new set of Boards of Appeal case-law research reports:Similarity between alcoholic beverages (except beers) (November 2025) - available in EN, ES, DE, FR, ITTrade marks contrary to public policy or accepted principles of morality (October 2025) - available in EN, ES, DE, FR, ITThomson Life doctrine and the concept of “independent distinctive role” of elements in a sign (November 2025) - available in EN, ES, DE, FR, ITThese reports are the result of discussions within the Consistency Circles and the General Consistency Meeting of the Boards of Appeal and reflect the views at the date of publication.The reports are working documents and do not have any binding effect on the Boards of Appeal.

🎉 Happy World IP Day 🎉To celebrate this year’s theme IP and Sports, ECTA has launched a series of initiatives:ECTA RUNS TO DUBLINThis week, we kicked-off a global challenge with various ECTA members running from different countries to the same final destination: the ECTA Annual Conference in Dublin 🏃‍♂️ ☘️Benjamin Fontaine (ECTA Second Vice-President, Plasseraud IP) - running from Alicante [video]Juan Berton Moreno (Berton Moreno IP Law) - running from Buenos Aires [video]Katri Kiviniemi (Castrén & Snellman) - running from Helsinki [video]Ike Ibeku (Benchmac & Ince) - running from Abuja [video]Mary White (Murgitroyd) - on the home stretch, running in Dublin [video]ECTA friends around the world, lace up your shoes and make your way to Dublin - we look forward to seeing you all at the finish line! Sign up here!INTERVIEW WITH BENJAMIN SCHINDLER (FIBA, Fédération Internationale de Basketball)🎤 In this focus interview, conducted by Anna Ostanina (ECTA Head of Legal and Institutional Relations), Benjamin Schindler (Senior Legal Affairs Manager at FIBA, Fédération Internationale de Basketball) reflects from a practical perspective on more than a decade of experience at the intersection of sports governance and IP enforcement.The discussion explores the specificities of the sport industry and the limits of traditional IP tools in an event-driven environment. His insights offer a perspective on how federations balance legal theory, operational constraints, and sponsor expectations in major international competitions and how external counsels can support them on this journey.Enjoy reading it! 🏀