João Negrão is the Executive Director of the European Union Intellectual Property Office (EUIPO) since 1 October 2023. Negrão originally joined the EUIPO as Head of the Executive Director’s Cabinet from 2010 to 2011, and in 2020 he became Director of both the International Cooperation and Legal Affairs Departments.
Between 2021 and 2023, he held the position of President of the EUIPO Boards of Appeal.
Before joining the EUIPO, Negrão held different positions in the Portuguese public administration: in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs’ Directorate-General for European Affairs, the Presidency of the Council of Ministers, and the Ministry of Justice’s National Institute of Industrial Property (INPI).
In 2001, he joined the INPI in the International Relations Cabinet, becoming the Head of Cabinet in 2004. In 2008, he was appointed Director of International Relations and Promotion of Innovation.
Negrão holds a master’s degree in Law and a bachelor’s degree in International Relations.
He also has numerous high-level qualifications in Public Administration Management (National Institute of Administration), Leadership Management and High Performance People Skills for Leaders (London Business School) as well as in IP-related training, such as a general course on IP (WIPO Worldwide Academy) and a specialised course on the practice and functioning of the IP system in the United States (United States Patent and Trade Mark Office).
Dr Savvas S. Papasavvas serves as a Judge at the General Court of the European Union since May 2004 and as its elected Vice President since 2019. As President of the Chamber (2010-2016), he has been a Member of the institution’s Administrative Committee since 2013. During the 2024-2025 judicial year, he presided the preliminary rulings chamber of the General Court.
Mr Papasavvas studied Law in Athens, Greece, earned a DEA from Paris II, and a PhD from Aix-Marseille III.
A Member of the Nicosia Bar since 1993, he taught constitutional law at the University of Cyprus from 1997 to 2004. A founding Member of the European Law Institute, he has published extensively on EU and constitutional law.
Eva Schewior, LL.M. (University of Michigan), has been President of the German Patent and Trade Mark Office (DPMA) since 1 February 2023. She began her public service career in 1994 at the German Federal Ministry of Justice, where she held various positions with an international focus.
Ms Schewior studied Law at the University of Mannheim. From 1993 to 1994, she spent a year as a student at the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor, United States.
Ms Schewior is a Member of the Board of Trustees of the Max Planck Institute for Innovation and Competition, and of the Board of Trustees of the Federal President’s Award for Innovation and Technology.
She is also a Member of the General Board of the German Association for Intellectual Property Law.
Sven Stürmann is the President of the EUIPO Boards of Appeal and an internationally accredited mediator (Centre for Effective Dispute Resolution).
Mr Stürmann has a distinguished career in IP law and mediation; he previously served as Chairperson of the Second and Third Boards of Appeal and played a pivotal role in establishing the Mediation Centre at the EUIPO.
He also frequently contributes as a speaker on mediation and EU trade mark issues.
Mr Stürmann has authored numerous articles on IP mediation and dispute resolution.
He holds degrees in Law and Mediation from the University of Göttingen, the Humboldt University of Berlin and the University of Alicante, including a master’s degree in Intellectual Property Law from Alicante in 2004, and mediates in German, English and Spanish.
Krystyna Kowalik-Bańczyk, PhD, is a Polish Judge at the General Court of the European Union. She has been serving as President of the Court’s Seventh Chamber since 2022, and Third Chamber since 2025.
Ms Kowalik-Bańczyk is an Associate Professor of European Law and Competition Law at the Institute of Law Studies, Polish Academy of Sciences, Warsaw.
Prior to her appointment as a Judge at the General Court in 2016, Ms Kowalik-Bańczyk worked as a Professor in Poland (at the Polish Academy of Sciences, the University of Warsaw and Gdańsk University of Technology).
She has been a Visiting Professor in France (at the Paris II Panthéon-Assas University and the University of Nice Sophia Antipolis) and at the University of Luxembourg.
She accomplished her postgraduate studies (DEA) in European Union Law at the University of Social Sciences in Toulouse, France, and an LLM in European Union Law at the College of Europe in Bruges, Belgium.
She wrote her PhD, awarded by the Polish Academy of Sciences, on the regulation of e-commerce in EU and international law.
She obtained her professorship in Poland as a result of her book on the rights of defence in EU antitrust proceedings.
Ion Gâlea is a jurist and diplomat with extensive experience in European and international law. A graduate of the University of Bucharest, he also holds advanced degrees from the University of Paris I Panthéon-Sorbonne, as part of the Franco-Romanian Legal College for European Studies programme organised in cooperation with the University of Bucharest, as well as from the National School of Political and Administrative Sciences in Romania and the University of Graz.
He began his career at the Romanian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, where he held successive leadership roles in EU and international law, ultimately serving as General Director of Legal Affairs from 2010 to 2016. He later represented Romania as Ambassador to Bulgaria from 2016 to 2020 and served as General Director for European Bilateral Relations and Regional Cooperation in 2021.
Alongside his diplomatic career, Mr Gâlea has been deeply involved in academia. He has taught at the University of Bucharest since 2002, becoming Professor in 2021. He has also held visiting positions in Armenia, Spain and at the Romanian Diplomatic Institute, and is the author of numerous legal publications.
Appointed Judge at the General Court on 27 October 2021, he was elected President of Chamber on 16 December 2025.
William Valasidis obtained a law degree at Aristotle University of Thessaloniki in 1993, and a master’s degree in Law from Harvard Law School in 1996. He was admitted to the Thessaloniki Bar and practiced in Mexico and the United States.
In 1998, Mr Valasidis joined the Court of Justice of the European Union as Legal Secretary in the chambers of Judge Krateros Ioannou and subsequently President Vassilios Skouris until 2014. From 2014 to 2022, he served first as Director of Protocol and Information of the Court and subsequently as its first Director of Communications.
Mr Valasidis was appointed a Judge at the General Court in September 2022.
A former Member of the EUIPO Boards of Appeal for 12 years, Cinzia Negro started her mandate as Chairperson of the Second Board of Appeal in October 2025.
Fluent in English, Spanish and French, Ms Negro graduated with honours from the Faculty of Law at the University of Turin, and completed postgraduate studies in Intellectual Property.
As a qualified Italian lawyer, she worked as IP counsel and attorney-at-law at a prominent IP firm in Milan, Italy, before joining the EUIPO in 2000.
Ms Negro is an experienced lecturer and frequent speaker on IP and mediation.
Virginia Melgar graduated in Criminal Sciences from the Institute of Criminology Paris in 1980, and graduated in Law from the University of Paris (Paris II Assas) in 1981. In 1982, she became a Judge in France, and was a Public Prosecutor at the Versailles Court of First Instance in 1984.
Ms Melgar was Magistrate at the Ministry of Justice Criminal division in 1986 and worked as a Seconded National Expert at the European Commission Legal Service from 1991 to 1994.
In 1995, Ms Melgar joined the Office for Harmonization in the Internal Market (OHIM) Legal Service as a trade mark and design Lawyer in Alicante, Spain, where she became Deputy Director of the General Affairs and External Relations Department in 2001. In 2004, she then worked there as an Examiner in the Trade Marks Department.
In 2006, Ms Melgar went to the European Patent Office in Munich, Germany, and was the Principal Director of Legal Affairs, before returning to OHIM in 2011 as a Lawyer in the Cancellation and Litigation Department.
In 2012, Ms Melgar worked as a Lawyer in the Litigation Department of the EUIPO (former OHIM), and became a Member of the Fifth Board of Appeal in 2015. She has been a Certified Mediator since 2019 and a Chairperson of the Fifth Board of Appeal since 2020.
Inga George is an IP lawyer and Partner at Boesling IP in Hamburg, Germany. She has more than 15 years of practical experience in trade mark, design, copyright and unfair competition law, and is an experienced litigator.
Before joining Boesling IP, she worked for a large international law firm.
Since 2021, Ms George has served as Co-Chair of the European Association Trade Mark Owners (MARQUES) Designs team.
She is also a contributing author to the Hasselblatt (ed.) article-by-article commentaries on the European Union trade mark regulation and the European Union design regulation, published by C.H. Beck.
Päivi Tahkokallio is Founder and CEO of Tahkokallio Design+, a strategic design agency operating from the Arctic in northern Finland.
With her track record in strategic and social design, Ms Tahkokallio has been referred to as ‘the mother of Arctic Design’, a design approach to support the Arctic’s sustainable and regenerative development. This is highly topical at a time when global challenges are under scrutiny.
Currently, Ms Tahkokallio is leading the Design Programme for Proto-Designers of Northern Finland, with Oulu being the Cultural Capital of Europe in 2026.
Ms Tahkokallio is former President of the Bureau of the European Design Associations (BEDA), with over 50 member organisations across Europe, closing her term in 2021. As President, Ms Tahkokallio led design policy work in Europe, with climate change, digitalisation and values as key topics.
These were relevant in BEDA’s input related to the New European Bauhaus, an initiative with a stronger co-design approach than ever before in the history of the European Commission.
Ms Tahkokallio has acted as Jury Member at international design competitions, including the BRP Design Challenge, Compasso d’Oro, German Design Award, Taiwan International Student Design Awards, The One Show and Turkey Design Awards. The 2026 edition of the DesignEuropa Awards will be her fifth time on the Jury.
Ms Tahkokallio is a fellow of the Royal Society of Arts in the United Kingdom, a Committee Member of the Arctic Society of Finland, and an Advisory Board Member of MADres, a European design policy project led by BEDA.
Paula de Andrés Gómez is a Partner at Berggren and leads the firm’s office in Alicante, Spain. She has over 24 years of experience in IP with a focus on design rights.
For the past 15 years, she has offered strategic counsel to both national and international clients and has managed extensive design portfolios.
Her expertise in global design protection is complemented by her active role in giving numerous presentations on the latest EU design legal reform.
She is a co-author of Lexology’s EU Design Chapter and actively contributes to several professional groups, including the International Federation of Intellectual Property Attorneys (FICPI) Design Working Group (CET 2), the European Communities Trade Mark Association (ECTA) Design Committee, the American Intellectual Property Law Association (AIPLA) Design Committee and the International Trade Mark Association (INTA) Design Committee.
Additionally, she maintains a strong connection with the EUIPO, participating in its Virtual Community of Quality and the Stakeholder Quality Assurance Panels Group on Design Invalidations.
Philipe Kutschke’s practice encompasses all contentious and non-contentious matters relating to non-technical IP, with an emphasis on EU and international design protection.
He advises clients from a broad range of industries with tailored design filing strategies, including the assessment of protectability, enforcement scenarios and the choice of optimal filing routes to secure robust and enforceable international design portfolios.
In addition to his client work, Mr Kutschke is involved in the development and discussion of design law as Co-Chair of the International Association for the Protection of Intellectual Property (AIPPI) Design Committee, as a Member of the European Communities Trade Mark Association (ECTA) Design Committee, and as a long-standing Lecturer on design and trade mark law at the Technical University of Munich.
After an experience in private practice, during her PhD in European Law, Maria Francesca Portincasa joined Automobili Lamborghini S.p.A. as a consultant and contributed to the creation of the Legal Department.
She then officially joined the company and became Head of Legal, reporting to the Managing Director and CFO.
Ms Portincasa is responsible for all legal matters, worldwide, related to the company, including IP, antitrust, criminal and general civil matters, motorsports, corporate governance, product liability, regulatory matters.
She manages the company’s trade marks, designs, patent registration and strategy, and any litigation or legal proceedings.
She is also a Member of the Internal Committee responsible for Product Safety.
Additionally, she prepares the minutes for the Board of Directors and Shareholders’ meeting, and drafts and advises on company contracts and other legal documents.
Over the last three years, the team has substantially changed and been involved in implementing new global strategies and innovative new technologies, such as AI for archiving and managing contracts, showing an in-depth knowledge of the sectors and capability of providing support to all the areas with a focus on multi-department environments.
Gordon Humphreys is currently Chairperson of the First Board and of the Third Board of Appeal at the EUIPO, having joined the Boards in 2005. He was Head of the Register Service from 2002 to 2005 and joined the Legal Department in 1997. He is also an accredited mediator with the Chartered Institute of Arbitrators (CIArb) and qualified as an international commercial arbitrator with CIArb in 2021. He has been a Member of the EUIPO Alternative Dispute Resolution Service since 2011. He took up his duties as President of the Boards of Appeal ad interim on 1 October 2023 until 30 November 2024.
Prior to working at the EUIPO, Mr Humphreys was in private practice in Luxembourg and Brussels, Belgium and qualified both as a barrister (England and Wales) and avocat (Brussels Bar).
He was also a Member of the CIArb Sub-Committee on Revision of Mediation Rules between 2016 and 2018. Mr Humphreys was educated at the University of Buckingham (LL.B), University of Cardiff (LL.M), University of Liège (master’s in Economic Law) and University of Alicante (specialist in EU Law).
Mr Humphreys speaks and writes regularly on ADR, trade mark and design matters, and has co-edited Mediation: Creating Value in International Intellectual Property Disputes, Wolters Kluwer (2018).
He was also a contributing author in Hasselblatt, Community Design Regulation: Article-by-Article Commentary, Second Edition (2018), Beck.
Shane Smyth is a Solicitor, Irish Registered Trade Mark Attorney and European Patent Attorney. He has been a Partner in FRKelly since 1989.
Mr Smyth was a Member of the Scientific Committee advising the European Commission on the registration of geographical indications of origin.
He is a former President of the Association for the Protection of Intellectual Property (Irish Group) and was Chairman of the Trade Marks and Designs Committee of the Association of Patent and Trade Mark Attorneys.
He is also a current Council Member of MARQUES.
Mr Smyth co-authored Intellectual Property Law in Ireland.
Katie Goulding is IP Counsel at Jaguar Land Rover (JLR). She leads a cross-specialism IP squad for the world-renowned luxury automotive brand, Range Rover. Prior to joining JLR in 2023, Ms Goulding accrued 12 years of experience in private practice.
Dr Anke Nordemann-Schiffel is a Certified Industrial Property Rights Lawyer in Berlin, Germany, and Partner of the IP law firm Nordemann. A Certified Copyright and Media Lawyer, Ms Nordemann-Schiffel is an expert in the fields of copyright, trade marks and competition and in international law. She provides strategic advice and is active in proceedings before the trade mark offices and in litigation before the German and European courts.
Ms Nordemann-Schiffel is the author of many articles and books in IP law and teaches the subject at university. Ms Nordemann-Schiffel was elected President of the German Association for Intellectual Property Law (GRUR) in October 2025.
André Pohlmann is a Member of the Boards of Appeal of the EUIPO in Alicante, Spain. From 2000 to 2006, he worked as a lawyer at an international law firm. His work experience covers trade marks and designs, with a focus on European Union trade marks and European Union designs. Mr Pohlmann defended many trade mark cases before the General Court and Court of Justice in Luxembourg, both as a representative of the parties and as an agent of the EUIPO.
Mr Pohlmann is a Certified Mediator (Centre for Effective Dispute Resolution) and an additional Member of the Board of Appeal of the Community Plant Variety Office in Angers, France. Mr Pohlmann holds a Dr. jur. from the University of Trier and an LL.M. from the University of East Anglia.
Simon Malynicz KC is one of Europe’s leading trade mark advocates. He is considered to hold the record number of appearances in trade mark appeals before the General Court and the Court of Justice among lawyers other than those employed by the EUIPO itself. Following the United Kingdom’s departure from the EU, he was called to the Bar of Ireland and continues to appear before the EU courts as before.
Mr Malynicz is therefore a ‘familiar foe’ in the courtroom, but outside it, he and the EUIPO collaborate at events such as this one, to exchange information and ideas on EU trade mark law and practice. Mr Malynicz has appeared in some of the most famous trade mark cases, such as Intel, L’Oréal, SkyKick, KitKat and Interflora. His professional honours include winning individual Senior IP Counsel prizes by Managing IP and (twice) by the Legal 500. He is currently ranked in Band 1 of leading IP advocates by both Chambers and Partners and the Legal 500.
Daryl Lim is the H. Laddie Montague Jr. Chair in Law at Penn State Dickinson Law. He is also the Associate Dean for Research and Strategic Partnerships and Founding Director of the Intellectual Property Law and Innovation Initiative. At university level, Mr Lim is a co-hire at the Institute of Computational and Data Sciences and was appointed to its Research Council in 2025. He is also an affiliate at the Center for Socially Responsible Artificial Intelligence.
Chengcheng Wei joined the Trade Mark Office of the China National Intellectual Property Administration (CNIPA) in 2018. She has successively served in the Publicity and International Exchange Division and the Trade Mark Review and Adjudication Department.
She has also participated in several international exchange and cooperation projects in the trade mark field, possessing extensive practical experience in frontline trade mark examination and adjudication.
Nina Korjus is Chairperson of the Fourth Board of Appeal of the EUIPO, a position she has held since January 2022. Ms Korjus previously served as Member of the Boards and has over a decade of judicial experience at the Finnish Market Court, including as Head of Department.
Earlier in her career, Korjus worked as a référendaire at the General Court of the European Union and at the Finnish Ministry of Justice’s European Law Unit. She holds a master’s degree in European Community Law from the College of Europe and has published widely on trade mark and competition law.
Masatoshi Otsuka currently serves as Administrative Trade Mark Judge at the Trial and Appeal Department (TAD) of the Japan Patent Office (JPO). He began his career at the JPO in 2002 and has worked as a trade mark Examiner since 2007. He has held a variety of positions, including Administrative Trade Mark Judge in the TAD and Deputy Director (Head of Policy Planning and Research Section) in the Trade Mark Division.
He was responsible for policy planning and research for trade mark examination as an Examiner and gained extensive practical experience as an Administrative Judge. Mr Otsuka’s overseas experiences include being a Visiting Scholar at the University of Washington School of Law, where he researched US IP laws, comparing them with Japanese IP laws, and working as a professional consultant in the Madrid Sector of the World Intellectual Property Organization for over five years.
Ray Jang has built a robust career across prestigious national and international organisations since entering public service in 1999, including the Ministry of Intellectual Property, Intellectual Property Trial and Appeal Board (IPTAB), Korean Presidential Council on IP, and Saudi Authority for Intellectual Property.
Throughout his tenure, Mr Jang has held pivotal roles especially in Trade Mark Examination and Policy division, IP Information Policy division and IP Planning and Budget division. Currently, he serves as a Trade Mark Administrative Judge at the IPTAB, playing a central role in adjudicating complex IP disputes.
Melanye K. Johnson is the Acting Deputy Chief Judge of the Trade Mark Trial and Appeal Board (TTAB). The TTAB is a business unit of the USPTO with over 65 employees, including 21 Administrative Trade Mark Judges. Prior to joining the TTAB, Ms Johnson served for over 11 years as a Senior Attorney for the US Department of Health and Human Services at the US National Institutes of Health, where she was the lead attorney for trade mark matters.
Before entering public service, Ms Johnson was Senior Counsel for trade mark and copyright law at DuPont Corporation. She also worked at several large law firms in Washington, D.C. and Detroit, United States, and served as a law clerk to a federal appellate judge. Ms Johnson earned her bachelor’s degree, with honours, from the University of Michigan-Ann Arbor, and her law degree from the Ohio State University College of Law.
Law graduate from the University of Valencia, specialised in Public Law and Criminal Law. He is also a registered member of the Valencia Bar Association.
He served as Mayor of Buñol (Valencia) from 1991 to 1995, Provincial Member of Parliament from 1995 to 1999, Senator from 2007 to 2009, and Member of the European Parliament from 2009 to 2014. He was also a member of the European Parliament Delegation for relations with Iraq and an International Election Observer accredited in numerous African and Ibero-American countries, serving as Head of the Electoral Observation Mission in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. In addition, he was President of the Parliamentary Intergroups for Peace and representative member of the European Parliament at the United Nations Climate Change Conference COP15, held in Copenhagen in December 2009.
He was a full member of ENVI, the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Food Safety, and Vice-President of the Euro-Latin American Parliamentary Assembly (EUROLAT), responsible for relations with civil society, associations and organisations for culture, education, cooperation and solidarity in Latin America and Europe. He is also a member of several NGOs focused on solidarity and international cooperation, and President of the Europe Foundation for Democracy, Culture and Solidarity.
He has participated in numerous national and international courses and conferences and is the author of various publications, as well as a contributor to different media outlets.
His latest appointment was as Permanent Delegate Ambassador of Spain to UNESCO and Vice-President of the World Heritage Committee, from August 2018 to November 2021.
Octavia Spineanu-Matei obtained her law degree in 1990. In 1991, she started her professional career as a Judge at one of the district courts in Bucharest, Romania.
From 1996 to 1999, she was a Judge at the Tribunal, and from 1999 to 2005, she served at the Bucharest Court of Appeal. Spineanu-Matei was the President of the civil section in both courts from 1997 to 2003. She was appointed as a Judge at the High Court of Cassation and Justice of Romania.
From 2006 to 2016, Ms Spineanu-Matei served also as an External Member of the Enlarged Board of Appeal of the European Patent Office. Since 1997, she dedicated herself to both the initial and the continuous training of Romanian judges and prosecutors at the National Institute of the Magistracy, where she was the Director from 2011 to 2016.
Ms Spineanu-Matei was appointed as a Judge at the General Court of the European Union on 19 September 2016. She was later appointed as a Judge at the Court of Justice on 7 October 2021.
Max Walters edits Managing IP’s news and analysis. He also helps chair and present events, including the Managing IP Awards, and commissions expert analysis. Walters also reports on all aspects of IP, particularly trade mark and copyright matters in Europe.
Miguel Gusmão serves as the Director of the Business Operations Department at the EUIPO, overseeing examination procedures for trade marks, designs and geographical indications. He is leading the business AI and digital enabled transformation under the EUIPO’s 2030 Strategic Plan.
Previously, Mr Gusmão held roles such as Deputy Director of Operations and Head of Corporate Governance, focusing on strategic planning, ISO9001 certification, and governance of strategic projects, performance and risk. He represents the EUIPO in European and international cooperation events, and participates in bilateral meetings with users and other IP offices.
Dr Claudia Pappas graduated in Law from University of Freiburg, wrote her thesis at the Max Planck Institute, and spent her legal clerkship in Berlin, Germany. Ms Pappas was a Partner at the IP law firm Weber Sauberschwarz in Düsseldorf from 1997 to 2015. Specialised in IP law, she joined ThyssenKrupp in 2016 and is Head of the Trade Mark Department, globally responsible for all trade marks, designs and IP contracts of the group.
Alfonso Sabán is a Partner at Herrero y Asociados. He joined the firm in 2012 after completing a double degree in Law and Political Science at the Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, during which he attended the IP module sessions at Freie Universität Berlin organised by the Max Planck Institute for Innovation and Competition.
His practice focuses on trade mark prosecution and litigation, as well as broader industrial property matters across Spanish and European jurisdictions. Mr Sabán is actively involved in international professional associations, including the International Trade Mark Association, the Association for the Protection of Intellectual Property, the Association of Intellectual Property Firms and the Intellectual Property Owners Association, and regularly advises clients on portfolio strategy, enforcement and dispute resolution.
LLD, LLD h.c., Kari Kuusiniemi is President of the Supreme Administrative Court of Finland since September 2018. Previously, he served as Justice and Vice President of the Court from 1999 onward.
Prior to his career in the judiciary, Mr Kuusiniemi was Professor of Environmental Law at the University of Turku. He was appointed Member of the Academy of Science and Letters in 2014. He was also Member of the Board of the National Defence Course Association since 2011, Chairman from 2020 to 2025, and President of ACA-Europe from 2023 to 2025.
Mr Kuusiniemi is President of the EU Forum of Judges for the Environment since 1 January 2026.
Cornelia Schmitt is a Partner at Grünecker in Munich, Germany. She supports clients in developing and protecting trade marks and their defence and enforcement before the German Patent and Trade Mark Office, the EUIPO, the German courts and the European Court of Justice in Luxembourg. She also provides comprehensive advice on competition law issues.
A particular focus of her work is providing strategic advice to international companies on the development of efficient out-of-court conflict solutions. Ms Schmitt has extensive experience in enforcing well-known and non-traditional trade marks and regularly represents clients in complex proceedings before courts and authorities. Her clients include international corporations from various industries.
Sarah van den Brande is a Partner in the Intellectual Property Department of the Belgian law firm Liedekerke. She joined the firm in 2019 and has been a Member of the Brussels Bar since 2007. Ms van den Brande advises and represents clients in both contentious and non-contentious matters, combining litigation with strategic legal advice, contract drafting and complex negotiations.
She is widely regarded for her pragmatic and solution-oriented approach, as well as her strong advocacy skills. An all-round IP litigator, she has developed particular expertise at the intersection of IP and data-related matters, including trade secrets. Her IP practice focuses on copyright, trade marks and designs.
She regularly assists clients in the media and tech sector, collecting societies, photographers, retailers and the food industry, offering tailored advice that reflects both legal and commercial realities. In addition to her practice, Ms van den Brande is deeply involved in the IP community.
She serves as President of the Belgian Group of the Association for the Protection of Intellectual Property, where she also leads the copyright study groups. She is also a Member of the Benelux Association for Trade Marks and Industrial Designs, and contributes to its Editorial Committee.
Ms van den Brande has developed recognised expertise in the doctrine of trade mark exhaustion, particularly in the context of recycling and upcycling. She has authored several publications on these topics and is a frequent speaker at conferences and professional events, where she shares insights on emerging trends and legal developments in IP.
Jolanta de Heij-Kaplińska is currently a Judge at the Court of Appeal in Warsaw, Poland, in the Economic and Intellectual Property Law Division. From 1999 to 2006, she was appointed as a Judge at the District Court for the Capital City of Warsaw.
She subsequently joined the Economic Division of that court and the Economic Division of the National Court Register. In 2006, she was appointed a Judge at the Regional Court in Warsaw, Economic Division, and served as Deputy Chairman of that division until 2010. From 2011 to 2016, she sat in the Division for the Protection of Competition and Consumers at the Regional Court in Warsaw.
In 2016, she was appointed a Judge at the Court of Appeal in Warsaw, Economic Division. Since 2021, she has handled IP cases in that division. Judge De Heij-Kaplińska completed postgraduate studies in European Union Law at Jagiellonian University in Kraków, as well as in Intellectual Property Law.
She also completed postgraduate studies in Economics and Commercial Law for judges at the Warsaw School of Economics.
Christopher Oldknow is a Senior Public Policy Manager at Amazon and has led IP policy across Europe since 2018. He leads engagement on the Digital Services Act and Product Liability Directive and serves as an expert in two groups at the European Observatory on Infringements of Intellectual Property Rights.
From 1998 to 2012, Mr Oldknow led Microsoft’s IP enforcement operations, first in the United Kingdom and Ireland, then in Russia and Central and Eastern Europe. In 2013, as interim Vice President at NBCUniversal, he worked on early site-blocking cases.
From 2013 to 2018, Mr Oldknow consulted on IP and human rights policy issues, co-founding the consultancy Elipe. Mr Oldknow was called to the Bar in 1995, holds an LLM from Queen Mary University of London, and a BSc in Physics from King’s College London.
Agris Batalauskis has been the Director of the Latvian Patent Office since 1 February 2022. He is a qualified Latvian lawyer and senior civil servant who has worked in governmental authorities since 2007.
Mr Batalauskis has extensive experience as an international expert in justice‑sector projects and previously served as the Director of the Project Department at the Latvian Ministry of Justice. Over the past decade, he has played a leading role in numerous innovation‑driven reforms within the national justice system.
In December 2005, Batalauskis completed the ADR Center International Accredited Mediator training, organised by the ADR Center in partnership with the EUIPO, becoming an ADR Center Accredited and ‘IMI Qualified’ mediator.
Mr Batalauskis participated in the 2025 Education and Cooperation Program of the fourth edition of SYNERGIA—a 168‑hour initiative fostering cooperation and the exchange of experience among high‑level officials from Central and Eastern Europe.
Giuseppe Bertoli studied Law at the Catholic University of Milan and is a postgraduate of Pavia University. He is the Director of the EUIPO Boards of Appeal Operations Area, managing the Alternative Dispute Resolution Service, Knowledge and Information Support Service, Litigation Service and Boards of Appeal Registry.
From 2013 to 2020, he was Head of the EUIPO Litigation Service. From 2009 to 2012, he served as Member of the EUIPO Boards of Appeal. From 2006 to 2009, he worked as a Référendaire at the EU General Court. From 2005 to 2006, he was Assistant to the President of the EUIPO Boards of Appeal.
In 2003 and 2004, he worked as an Officer in the Industrial Property Unit of the European Commission Directorate-General for Internal Market, Industry, Entrepreneurship and SMEs. From 2000 to 2002, he was the Legal Assistant to the Chairperson of the EUIPO Third Board of Appeal. From 1996 to 2006, he was Selected Member of the Boards of Appeal of the Community Plant Variety Office. He was also a Lawyer at the Milan Bar from 1992 to 1999.
Since July 2024, Mr Bertoli is the Director of the EUIPO Legal Affairs Department, responsible for defining the Office’s IP policy, including the revision of its Examination Guidelines, legislative matters and horizontal legal affairs.
Gaya Schultz works as a Senior Benelux and European Trade Mark and Design Attorney at Kennedy Van der Laan, a law firm in Amsterdam, the Netherlands. She followed IP specialisation courses at the Institute for Information Law at the University of Amsterdam.
After graduating, she followed the postgraduate Benelux Association for Trade Mark and Design Law (BMM) course and became a certified Trade Mark and Design Attorney in 2002.
Ms Schultz participated in the 2020-2021 edition of EUIPO Trade mark and Design Education Programme (ETMD EP) and was guest lecturer of the 2023-2024 ETMD EP edition. Ms Schultz is a Committee Member of BMM and European Communities Trade Mark Association (ECTA) and in that capacity regularly consults with the Benelux Office for Intellectual Property and the EUIPO on harmonisation of IP in Europe.
Irène Bénac is a French judge. She has been managing a division at the Judicial Court of Paris (first instance) that deals exclusively with IP matters since September 2022.
Susana has a degree in law (Valladolid University) and master in Corporate Legal Advice (Instituto de Empresa). She joined the legal department of INDITEX in June 1994 and built the IP area of practise (managing its large portfolios, preventing and resolving all types of conflicts) where she is now the Director of IP Strategy.
Starting as a small family business in 1963, Inditex is now one of the world's largest fashion retailers, with eight commercial formats (notably Zara, Pull&Bear, Massimo Dutti, Bershka) selling in worldwide through its online platforms or its over 5400 stores in 98 markets.
Sukanya Wadhwa is a Solicitor at Brandsmiths, specialising in IP litigation involving trade marks, copyright and design. She has experience working on disputes for small business owners as well as multinational corporations and multi-jurisdictional matters.
Ms Wadhwa studied Law at the University of Oxford, regularly returning to the Oxford Law Faculty as a Guest Lecturer and a Judge on the International IP Moot. Prior to Brandsmiths, Ms Wadhwa trained and qualified at Bristows, where she also worked on commercial and technology disputes. During her tenure at Bristows, she completed the Postgraduate Diploma on UK, EU and US Copyright at King’s College London.
Thomas Frydendahl is currently a litigator and represents the EUIPO Boards of Appeal in cases before the European Courts in Luxembourg. Since 2022, he has also been a Member of the Norwegian Board of Appeal (KFIR).
From 2018 to 2020, Mr Frydendahl worked in a private practice at Gorrissen Federspiel in Copenhagen, Denmark, where he provided practical and commercially oriented advice and representation in IP matters to clients, ranging from start-ups to companies with a global presence.
From 2011 to 2018, he was a legal adviser at the Danish Patent and Trade Mark Office, during which he spent five years as a Seconded National Expert at the EUIPO and its Board of Appeal. Mr Frydendahl has broad experience in IP law, particularly in European, Danish and Norwegian trade mark law.
He is a frequent lecturer for lawyers in the Nordic countries and at international conferences on topics related to European trade mark law.
Klaudia Misztal is a Polish lawyer and patent attorney at the European Union Intellectual Property Office (EUIPO), with extensive experience in both the private and public sectors. She previously worked at leading law firms in Warsaw and Madrid, where she led the European Union Trade Mark (EUTM) practice for international clients.
She was also an active member of the International Trade Mark Association (INTA) Leadership Group, contributing to initiatives focused on trade mark harmonisation. Ms Misztal has worked as an IP Specialist at EUIPO for nearly 10 years within the Boards of Appeal.
Since 2020, she has been an accredited mediator, further strengthening her expertise in intellectual property dispute resolution.
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