epi Information 2/2009

Information 2/2009 Reports 55
Next Board and Council Meetings
Board Meetings
80th Board meeting on 12 September 2009 in Ljubljana (SI)
81st Board meeting on 28 November 2009 in Munich (DE)
Council Meetings
67th Council meeting on 10 October 2009
in Düsseldorf (DE)
Relocation of the epi Secretariat
The epi Secretariat is moving. As from 7 September 2009 the epi Secretariat will be located at:
Bayerstrasse 83
80335 Munich
Germany
The mail address remains for the time being unchanged:
P.O. Box 260112
80058 Munich
Germany
Fax and telephone numbers remain unchanged:
Tel.: +49 89 242052-0
Fax: +49 89 242052-20
Report of FICPI World Congress and Executive Committee Meeting
Washington D.C, 5 th –11 th June, 2009
Our institute was invited by The International Federation
of Intellectual Property Attorneys (FICPI) to attend its
World Congress, and Executive Committee Meeting in
Washington D.C. This FICPI World Congress takes place
every three years. FICPI invites the Presidents of sister
organisations such as ours to attend. I had the privilege
of representing our President and, through him, the
Bureau, Council and epi as a whole.
There was a full technical program at the Congress,
covering a diverse range of topics such as „Are Patents
Worth the cost of obtaining them?“, „Addressing the
Backlog (in Patent Offices)“, and „Being a Business
Partner with your client“, one of the speakers on that
topic being the Associate General Counsel for IP Law at
IBM. This session attracted a good audience, as did a
session on „Do Business Method and Software Patents
T. Johnson (GB)
make sense?“ This took the form of a mock trial, the
„Judge“ being Chief Judge Paul Michel, of the US Court
of Appeal for the Federal Circuit. One of the advocates
was an epi member, Alexander Esslinger (DE). The social
program was up to the usual FICPI standard, with an
opening Dinner for the Ex-Co at US Supreme Court, and
during the Congress, dinner at the Udvar-Hazy Air Space
Center, where the tables were arranged under the space
shuttle „Enterprise“.
During the Ex-Co, FICPI admitted a new Indian section,
so India is now represented at the Executive Committee
(as is China). Sister organisations present were AIPPI,
APAA, AIPLA and UNION as well as epi. Each sister
organisation gave a short presentation, so on behalf of
the epi I thanked FICPI for its invitation, wished both the
Ex-Co and Congress well for successful meetings, and
II – Contributions from epi-members and other contributions