Journal

President’s Address

On Wednesday 6 November 2024, at the 142nd Annual General Meeting of CIPA, Bobby Mukherjee was confirmed as President with effect from 1 January 2025. Below he sets out his plans for the next 12 months.

Thank you. It is a pleasure to be here, amongst so many friends and colleagues. And a warm welcome to our guest David Kappos for joining us at this AGM.

I feel it’s an immense privilege and honour to be confirmed today as your President with effect from 1 January 2025. Thank you for placing your trust in me. CIPA is a world-class, forward-looking Institute with a rich heritage. I stand on the shoulders of giants. I can see a number of distinguished Past Presidents of the Institute today in the audience. As your next President, I will try to do my best to serve the interests of all CIPA members.

May I take this opportunity to thank the current CIPA President, Matt Dixon for his inspiring leadership and energy, valuable insights and good humour this year. In particular, Matt and team have successfully promoted UK patent attorneys’ rights of representation at the Unified Patent Court. I look forward to continuing to work with Matt in his role as Immediate Past President, in 2025. I would also like to thank our current Immediate Past President Daniel Chew for his outstanding leadership and energy during his Presidential year 2023 and for his significant contributions over the past three years.

May I congratulate Simon Wright on his election today as my Vice President for 2025, as well as those elected and re-elected to Council. My best wishes and thanks also extend to those leaving Council.

In 2025, my top priority as President will be to engage actively with the entire CIPA membership, and particularly encourage our industry members’ voice to be better heard. As a practising in-house IP lawyer and Head of IP at BAE Systems plc, a FTSE30 company, this is close to my heart. Industry and private practice must continue to work together closely to create and drive value using IP in different contexts. We must continue to work together, and with other partners, to protect and sustain the UK’s world class IP framework – one which is balanced, robust, understood and enforceable, in support of driving innovation, jobs and economic growth. We should continue to support the ongoing key substantive patent law harmonisation work in the international context. A shout-out is due to Tony Rollins – a Past President of the Institute, who has been leading on this for us for many years. Thank you Tony.

Where necessary, we must continue to shape IP policy positively in complex areas – such as AI, through such partnership. This approach is incredibly powerful, when we get it right – as we witnessed in the context of the CPTPP trade work for example, when CIPA and the IP Federation worked together closely with UK government and others, to secure suitable IP ‘carve outs’ for the UK.

Now, I am admittedly concerned by the raft of ‘anti-IP initiatives’ such as IP waivers and compulsory licensing initiatives we are seeing across the international landscape. In my view, green technologies are the next key frontier where IP exceptions/waivers will likely be sought. Businesses cross-sector must not be disincentivised from investing in green technologies. If that were allowed to happen through say the introduction of waivers/exceptions, everyone would lose out. It is good that we secured a positive, balanced outcome at the last WTO Ministerial Conference: MC13 earlier in 2024, with robust thoughtful leadership from the UK. We need to be ready for the next round at the next WTO Ministerial Conference: MC14, in Cameroon. As another priority, I therefore think it is incredibly important for us to work with government, pro-IP actors such as WIPO and other like-minded bodies to help articulate the value and importance of IP for business (small, medium and large) and the wider society, through real-world examples. We must counter effectively any IP misconceptions or emotive ‘anti-IP’ arguments, backed up by hard evidence.

Another priority close to my heart is continuing to support our equality, diversity, and inclusion work through tangible action. Whilst I feel we are making progress, in some areas more than others, there is still more to do. An area of focus is how to improve access into the IP profession through the creation and development of new vocational pathways: namely, through new ‘IP Apprenticeships’ for different roles including IP paralegals/formalities, and patent attorneys. Such new structured pathways would be complementary to the traditional routes into our profession. For me, this makes business sense, and it is fundamentally, about advancing social mobility. At CIPA, we have started the journey in 2024, working closely with The Institute for Apprenticeships and Technical Education (‘IfATE’), the IP Regulation Board (‘IPReg’), the UK IPO, Higher Education Institutes, and others. And there’s a lot more to do. There are many talented people out there, with whom we are not engaging, who may never have heard about IP or our profession, who currently don’t want or can’t afford to go to university. So, let’s give those people an equal opportunity to access and contribute to our amazing profession. And by doing so, let’s raise awareness of what we all do.

We can fund this through use of the apprenticeship levy, and help transform people’s lives for the better, whilst enriching our profession and sustaining our world-class standards!

It is of course important that we continue to deliver on CIPA’s strategic objectives as set out by the current and Past Presidents, including by actively engaging and supporting innovative SMEs, continuing to support the work of IPReg appropriately, building/sustaining relationships with key stakeholders domestically and internationally, and ensuring that UK patent attorneys’ rights of representation before the UPC are preserved. In this regard, I was shocked and dismayed by recent UPC decisions in Suinno Mobile et al v Microsoft First Instance Division (Paris), which held that in-house patent attorneys could not act as UPC representatives, due to lack of independence. This aspect of the decisions makes no sense, and needs to be effectively challenged and overturned, in my view.

Finally, I would like to thank the Chief Executive Lee Davies and his ‘dream team’ at CIPA, as well as the CIPA Council and committees, for their continued sterling work and efforts.

I look forward to working closely with you all in my Presidential year.

Thank you.