Event Listing

Matt Dixon is the Immediate Past President of the Chartered Institute of Patent Attorneys (CIPA) and Executive Chair at Beck Greener LLP.

Passionate about building motivated teams backed by efficient systems to grow successful businesses, Matt has held significant leadership positions in several notable UK patent and trade mark firms. For over 15 years, he has been a prominent member of the Council of the Chartered Institute of Patent Attorneys, the UK’s largest membership organisation in the field of intellectual property, serving as CIPA’s elected President in 2024. On behalf of CIPA he has actively promoted the capability of UK patent attorneys to represent before the Unified Patent Court (UPC) and has provided evidence to UK Government regarding support for innovative SME businesses.

Matt’s technical expertise covers the broad fields of physics, engineering, electronics and software, working with companies in sectors as diverse as medical devices, wind turbines, robotic vehicles, online gambling, telecommunications security and air conditioning systems. In addition to providing commercially focused IP strategy advice, he has also represented major multi-national corporations in multi-party Opposition and Appeal proceedings before the European Patent Office, particularly in the field of medical devices, such as absorbent products, negative pressure wound therapy, auto-injectors and super-resolution fluorescence microscopy. Recently, Matt has represented clients before the Central Division of the UPC in Paris.

Prior to joining Beck Greener, Matt worked Of Counsel for an Aberdeen-based start-up patent practice, supporting the founder with the growth of the business. He has led the London office and the Engineering team of one of the UK’s largest IP firms. He founded the London office of a new IP practice with an innovative business model based entirely on fixed fees. He trained and qualified at one of the UK’s most respected patent and trade mark practices, becoming a partner in that firm’s Munich office.

Eskil Waage (mr), born 26.9.1968 in Copenhagen, Denmark

cand. jur. 1995 (Copenhagen University), docteur en droit 1998 (Université de Strasbourg)

Assistant of Professor Dr Dieter Stauder, CEIPI, Strasbourg, 1994-1998

Staff lawyer at the European Patent Office’s Directorate for International Legal Affairs (DG5), Munich, 1998-2008 and again 2012-to date

Seconded expert at the European Commission’s Directorate General for the Internal Market, Industrial Property Unit, Brussels, 2008-2011

Main fields of activity:

–        preparatory work for the revision of the EPC (1998-2002)

–        draft European Patent Litigation Agreement (2003-2005)

–        action in favour of the London Agreement on translation of European patents (2006-2008)

–        contribution to the Unitary Patent and Unified Patent Court projects (2008-to date)

–        in charge of the SACEPO Secretariat (Standing advisory committees of user representatives before the EPO)

Peter has 32 years of experience working in the UKIPO during which he has been Deputy Director, Head of Examination in the field of Telecommunications, a Tribunal Hearing Officer and Head of Patent Information and Commercial Search Services. Peter is recognised as an expert in patent search and classification. He has previously held the post of Deputy Chairman of WIPO’s IPC Committee of Experts and has been responsible for the introduction of EPOQUENET and the Co-operative Patent Classification (CPC) here at the UKIPO. Peter is currently one of four Service Owners on our programme of digital transformation where he is most recently lead a project to introduce a new cross rights online renewal service. As Head of Business Support and IT Services, his previous achievements include the delivery of an integrated document management system, a successful mainframe migration and implementation of the Federated Register. Peter is a qualified Programme Manager with experience of contract negotiations and working with 3rd party suppliers to deliver IT solutions. He is currently Deputy Chairman of the EPO’s Technical and Operational Support Committee (TOSC) and has played a lead role in European Co-operation since 2006.

Parminder is a patent attorney and Partner at Appleyard Lees.  She primarily handles physics-based technologies and computer-implemented inventions (CIIs), and she is well-known for her specialism in Artificial Intelligence (AI) and deep tech. Her work in the AI space includes patenting AI and machine learning used for image analysis and object classification, human-computer interactions, text-to-speech systems, 5G networks, and synthetic dataset generation, as well as novel generative AI models, federated learning, and the use of AI to control processes or machines.

Howard exploits his interdisciplinary technical knowledge to protect inventions for Applicants, particularly in emerging technologies in chemistry, physics, health care and computing, including AI/ML. Howard pragmatically applies his legal expertise and extensive experience before the EPO Opposition Divisions and Boards of Appeal to defend rights for Patentees and to challenge third party rights for Opponents, including as strawperson. Howard combines his knowledge, expertise and experience to advantageously benefit Litigants before national courts. Howard capitalizes further on his business acumen to develop IP and commercialization strategies for organizations dependent on innovation, including delivering Freedom to Operate risk assessment opinions.

Howard is a European Patent Attorney, European Patent Litigator (representative before the UPC) and a UK Chartered Patent Attorney. Prior to joining the patent profession in 2014, Howard undertook academic research in Japan, delivered offshore and energy engineering projects and developed analytical instrumentation, particularly for health care.

Howard graduated from the University of Cambridge, UK with MA in Natural Sciences and a PhD in Metallurgy. Howard also has a MSc in Computing, a LLM (Distinction) in Intellectual Property Law from the University of Manchester, UK and a Diploma (Distinction) in Patent Litigation in Europe from the University of Strasbourg, France.

Howard is fluent in English and Portuguese, having grown up in Brazil, and is proficient in French.

Howard leads the LATAM working group of the Chartered Institute of Patent Attorneys (CIPA) International Liaison Committee (ILC). Howard is the Secretary of FICPI-UK and the UK FICPI alternate delegate. Howard is also the substitute member for Norway for the epi Professional Education Committee and the epi Litigation Committee. Howard regularly presents on patent case law and tutors candidates for the European Qualifying Examinations (EQEs).

As Deputy Chief Executive, Neil is responsible for CIPA’s stakeholder management at home and overseas, as well as public affairs, public relations and all external and internal communications. In 2018 Neil won the Memcom award for Outstanding Achiever in a Membership or Marketing Team in recognition of his use of stakeholder engagement to build advocacy and spread CIPA’s key post-Brexit messages globally.

He joined CIPA from the Probation Association, the national membership body for the Probation Trusts of England and Wales. As the Association’s PR and Communications Manager he held the most senior communications position in the probation service outside of Government, briefing politicians and managing national media appearances by senior probation chiefs.

A journalist by trade, Neil spent many years running newsrooms in newspaper and radio environments. He also managed teams in a city PR agency.

He is a keen cyclist, a long-suffering Arsenal fan and music geek.

Matt Dixon is the Immediate Past President of the Chartered Institute of Patent Attorneys (CIPA) and Executive Chair at Beck Greener LLP.

Passionate about building motivated teams backed by efficient systems to grow successful businesses, Matt has held significant leadership positions in several notable UK patent and trade mark firms. For over 15 years, he has been a prominent member of the Council of the Chartered Institute of Patent Attorneys, the UK’s largest membership organisation in the field of intellectual property, serving as CIPA’s elected President in 2024. On behalf of CIPA he has actively promoted the capability of UK patent attorneys to represent before the Unified Patent Court (UPC) and has provided evidence to UK Government regarding support for innovative SME businesses.

Matt’s technical expertise covers the broad fields of physics, engineering, electronics and software, working with companies in sectors as diverse as medical devices, wind turbines, robotic vehicles, online gambling, telecommunications security and air conditioning systems. In addition to providing commercially focused IP strategy advice, he has also represented major multi-national corporations in multi-party Opposition and Appeal proceedings before the European Patent Office, particularly in the field of medical devices, such as absorbent products, negative pressure wound therapy, auto-injectors and super-resolution fluorescence microscopy. Recently, Matt has represented clients before the Central Division of the UPC in Paris.

Prior to joining Beck Greener, Matt worked Of Counsel for an Aberdeen-based start-up patent practice, supporting the founder with the growth of the business. He has led the London office and the Engineering team of one of the UK’s largest IP firms. He founded the London office of a new IP practice with an innovative business model based entirely on fixed fees. He trained and qualified at one of the UK’s most respected patent and trade mark practices, becoming a partner in that firm’s Munich office.