Event Listing

Lee Davies has been the Chief Executive of the Chartered Institute of Patent Attorneys (CIPA) since February 2012. Prior to this, Lee was the Deputy Chief Executive of the Institute for Learning (IfL), the professional body for further education teachers. Lee’s professional background is in engineering (mechanical services) and further education teaching. Lee has experience of the governance of professional bodies, having served as the President of the Chartered Institute of Plumbing and Heating Engineering (CIPHE) in 2011-12.
Lee says that such a varied career, from apprentice plumber to CEO of CIPA, via organisations such as the Highbury College in Portsmouth, the Workers’ Educational Association (WEA) and IfL, has left him a little confused about his professional identity. Lee now identifies as an ‘association leader’, although the concept of association leadership is, in Lee’s words, “woefully undervalued and little recognised in the UK”. Lee is a passionate advocate for the association sector and is President and Chair of the Institute of Association Leadership (IAL), where he leads the Chief Executives’ Forum.

Vicki Salmon is a solicitor and UK and European patent attorney, patent attorney litigator and UPC representative. She began her career with Mewburn Ellis, before moving through city law firms and back to patent attorney practices. She is now a co-founder of Impact Intellectual Property LLP, which started in September 2021.

Her work includes advising clients on all forms of IP protection, from strategy and filing, through clearance, disputes and exploitation.

Vicki is Vice President and member of Council. She has chaired the Internal Governance Committee, Education Committee, Litigation Committee and Congress Steering Committee. She is also a member of the Patents Committee, the Internal Governance Committee, the Small Practice Committee, and the Public Affairs Committee. She is a contributor to the CIPA Guide to the Patents Act. As chair of litigation committee, Vicki worked on the development of the UPC with the other UK and EU professions, which involved many meetings with the IPO and appearances in front of Parliamentary select committees.

When not working, she might be found upside down on her yoga mat, on the golf course or, in the summer, listening to outdoor opera.

Lee Davies has been the Chief Executive of the Chartered Institute of Patent Attorneys (CIPA) since February 2012. Prior to this, Lee was the Deputy Chief Executive of the Institute for Learning (IfL), the professional body for further education teachers. Lee’s professional background is in engineering (mechanical services) and further education teaching. Lee has experience of the governance of professional bodies, having served as the President of the Chartered Institute of Plumbing and Heating Engineering (CIPHE) in 2011-12.
Lee says that such a varied career, from apprentice plumber to CEO of CIPA, via organisations such as the Highbury College in Portsmouth, the Workers’ Educational Association (WEA) and IfL, has left him a little confused about his professional identity. Lee now identifies as an ‘association leader’, although the concept of association leadership is, in Lee’s words, “woefully undervalued and little recognised in the UK”. Lee is a passionate advocate for the association sector and is President and Chair of the Institute of Association Leadership (IAL), where he leads the Chief Executives’ Forum.

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.

Andrea is a Chartered Patent Attorney and a former CIPA President. In the past she has served on the Institute’s governing Council and several of its committees.

Before her retirement she was a partner in a small regional IP practice, Greaves Brewster LLP, of which she had been a co-founder.

Andrea established IP Inclusive in 2015 to promote equality, diversity, inclusion (EDI) and wellbeing throughout the UK’s IP professions. Alongside many enthusiastic volunteers, she has developed the initiative into a well-connected and influential player in the IP sector. She became its first Lead Executive Officer in 2019.

Julia Gwilt is a partner at Appleyard Lees and specialises in software inventions.

She has had a passion for training for over 15 years.  As one of the patent attorney members who established the Patent Examination Board (PEB), she oversaw the UK professional examinations for over six years until her term ended in 2020.  She is now chair of the epi Profession Education Committee which oversees training and other aspects of the EQE for trainee European patent attorneys.  Together with other members of the PEC, she has been heavily involved in the proposal for a new digital EQE.

Nina is an experienced patent attorney with an academic background in physics & mathematics and extensive experience with software and robotics inventions.
Nina’s career has spanned a wide spectrum of the IP landscape: she trained in private practice in Munich, drove commercial IP strategy in-house at IBM and Porsche in Stuttgart, and has now moved into the public sector at the UK Atomic Energy Authority—a research organisation leading the delivery of sustainable fusion energy.

Beyond her day job, Nina is deeply committed to the future of the IP profession. She is part of the team working on Visser’s Annotated European Patent Convention. She actively contributes as an epi Tutor and committee member, focusing on education and IP awareness, advocating for a more inclusive environment via the Diversity & Inclusion Working Group, and championing professional development through the pilot epi Students Mentorship Programme: https://patentepi.org/en/epi-students/epi-students-mentorship-programme/.

Electing a representative who is both new to the UK and deeply experienced within the epi’s governance is an opportunity. Nina’s extensive internal experience ensures she can be immediately effective, understanding the epi’s mechanisms and key issues from day one and offering the UK membership a unique and powerful blend of deep institutional knowledge and a fresh perspective.

Should she be elected, Nina promises to represent the UK’s interests within epi and to promote epi within the UK IP community. She asks for your vote to bring both newcomer energy and epi expertise to the UK delegation.

Darren Smyth is a UK and European Patent Attorney, and was the head of EIP’s chemistry practice group EIP Elements until 2023.  He now holds the position of Head of Knowledge, and is known as an authoritative commentator on IP issues, having been a regular contributor to the IPKat weblog and the Journal of Intellectual Property Law & Practice, and contributing the UPC reports to the CIPA Journal.  His practice is now heavily focussed on contentious work including EPO oppositions and UPC litigation.

Darren has a masters degree in chemistry and DPhil in synthetic organic chemistry from the University of Oxford, and worked in Japan for two years at the Tokyo Institute of Technology before entering the patent profession.  Darren is an honorary professor at Queen Mary, University of London, where he teaches the Certificate and Masters courses aimed at trainee patent and trade mark attorneys.

Darren serves on the committee of IP Out, the LGBTQ+ community group within the IP Inclusive initiative in the UK Intellectual Property professions, and was a speaker at its inaugural event.  He is the convenor of the EIPride group within EIP.

Emily is a UK and European patent attorney working in the tech team at Kilburn & Strode LLP.  Although her areas of expertise include medical devices, telecoms, aerospace and software, Emily is also passionate about femtech and is increasingly involved in protecting innovations in this exciting field.  Emily has an interest in mental health, having co-founded a mental health awareness campaign whilst at university.  Emily regularly speaks at IP events on mental health stigma and addressing the gender gap in the professional services.

Lucie Jones is the Head of Client Services at EIP and current chair of the CIPA Paralegal Committee. With over 20 years of experience in intellectual property, Lucie has worked in France, Japan, and New Zealand before relocating to the UK in 2012. In her current role, she focuses on client services, overseeing the onboarding of new clients and managing key relationships to ensure a seamless IP protection process. Lucie passed the EPAC in 2022 and the APPC in 2025.

Stewart is a partner at Hepworth Browne specialising in chemical and pharmaceutical inventions. Stewart trained at one of the largest European firms before leaving to join Hepworth Browne as a partner 6 years ago. Stewart sits on CIPA’s IP Paralegal Committee and is also the attorney lead on the Introductory Patent Paralegal Course. Stewart is also a trustee of the Institute of Patentees and Inventors.