On 4 and 5 June 2020, the international section of the CEIPI intended to organize its 31st annual European tutors’ meeting in Strasbourg. The 2020 edition of this event should have provided the opportunity to welcome the tutors in CEIPI’s new premises in the CARDO building. About 70 participants, all specialists in European patent law teaching for the CEIPI in several European cities, had announced their participation in this meeting.
Though, further to the COVID-19 crisis and the various security measures introduced within the European Union and in several other countries since March 2020, the CEIPI had to cancel this event.
In order to maintain, however, at least part of the presentations scheduled this year, the CEIPI has organized three virtual meetings at the initial dates of the meeting:
4 June 2020
- Derk Visser, Visser-Tel Consultancy: Recent EPO case law
- Hugo Meinders, former Chairman of a Technical Board of Appel and permanent member of the Enlarged Board of Appeal, European Patent Office (EPO): Amended rules of procedure of the Boards of Appeal of the European Patent Office
5 June 2020
- Zhilong Yu, Senior Legal Officer, PCT Legal and User Relations Division, World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) : PCT updates
Introduced by the director of the international section of the CEIPI, Thierry Debled, and attended by about 50 European tutors, these virtual meetings have been a real success. The start of each meeting provided the opportunity for the participants to have some informal discussions and to maintain the friendly relationship renewed every year by this meeting. Each of the two-hour presentations for which complementary reference material was distributed, led to interesting questions and lively discussions through the chat.
While waiting to organize the 32nd European tutors’ meeting in its usual format in Strasbourg in May 2021, the international section of CEIPI is very pleased with the positive outcome of the virtual meetings in the framework of the event this year.
