AIPPI groups and meetings

On Saturday, about 2,000 IP specialists from throughout the world converged in Seoul for the 43rd Congress of the International Association for the Protection of Intellectual Property.

AIPPI has members from more than 100 countries, either grouped in national groups or regional groups. Where no group exists they are independent members. Each group welcomes IP specialists of the country or region (such as lawyers, patent and trademarks attorneys, members from industry, academics and judges) and any other person having an interest in intellectual property. The national and regional groups are essential for the AIPPI. When the AIPPI studies a topic, the groups are the fundamental source of information for assessing national laws and practices. When AIPPI wishes to work on harmonization, proposals from the groups and discussions within the groups are the first steps.

AIPPI counts 63 national groups and one regional group. These groups are distributed throughout the world. Due to the history of the association, most of the groups are in Europe. However, the Asian region counts three very important groups (Korea, Japan and China) which together represent around 20 percent of the membership. The Korean group is the 10th-largest group of AIPPI.

The birth of a new group is always considered an important achievement. A new group appears when the country or region contains a sufficient number of independent members to form a group. The youngest group of AIPPI is the Turkish National Group. This year, a new group in Sri Lanka will be recognized during the Seoul Congress. In the next years, we expect to see the formation of two new groups: one in the Caribbean region, the other in Vietnam.

The members of AIPPI meet every year. A congress of around 1,800 members is organized every two years. A smaller meeting (ExCo and Forum) is organized in the intermediate years. The AIPPI meetings are hosted in a country by invitation of the national group. The Korean Group of AIPPI is hosting the Congress this year. The next congresses will be in Toronto (Canada) in September 2014, in Milan (Italy) in September 2016 and in Cancun (Mexico) in 2018. The next intermediate meetings will be hosted in Helsinki (Finland) in September 2013 and in Rio de Janeiro (Brazil) in 2015.

AIPPI was pleased to have been in Korea this year, a country with a long and still growing IP culture.

By Laurent Thibon, Deputy secretary general, AIPPI