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Chris Mercer joined the patent profession in 1975 and passed the UK Finals exams in 1979. For the majority of his career, Chris was either a partner or a consultant for Carpmaels & Ransford, with a large practice in oppositions and appeals at the EPO and litigation before the UK courts. Chris is a member of Council for CIPA and is also on a number of CIPA committees, including the Education, Patents and Litigation Committees. He is also on epi’s Council and on various epi Committees and was a founding member of EPLIT. Chris is a former president of both CIPA and epi. He appeared as an advocate in a Moot Court event in 1977.

Amrit’s experience as an IP solicitor allows her to effectively assist clients to protect and commercially exploit their IP, including trade marks, patents as well as know-how and trade secrets, by providing strategic legal advice to support businesses at their respective stage of growth.

Amrit works with clients of various sizes, with a particular focus on founder-CEO start-ups, equity backed early stage technology companies, and SMEs.  Such clients cross a number of sectors including life sciences, biotechnology and pharmaceuticals, with subject matter ranging from diagnostic and therapeutic agents, biological and chemical compounds, psychedelics, PET-imaging agents, proteins, polymers, imaging devices, analytical instruments, machine perfusion, alternative fuels, drug delivery systems and artificial intelligence based platforms.

Amrit provides ad-hoc advice as well as acting as pseudo “in-house” counsel for clients and/or working closely with inhouse legal teams by drafting, advising and/or negotiating contracts with an IP focus such as confidentiality agreements, consultancies, those related to and supporting pre-clinical studies, and manufacturing and distribution agreements. She has an expertise in drafting bespoke collaboration agreements (both academic and commercial) and regularly advises and drafts licensing arrangements (in and out) across all types of IP, negotiating with universities (including international institutions and their respective tech transfer offices), multinational pharmaceutical and technology companies, funding bodies and government departments.

Amrit holds a law degree from UCL and qualified as a solicitor at an internationally recognised London law firm.

Arnie is one of the few people in the UK to have qualified as a UK and European patent attorney and solicitor of England and Wales. This provides him with a deep understanding of the full lifecycle of a patent, from conception through to commercialisation and enforcement. Over the course of his career, he has worked in both private practice and in-house at one of the world’s leading telecommunication companies. He uses this unique experience to help his clients solve complex and commercially important IP problems through the integration of his technical, legal and commercial expertise.

Arnie has worked across a broad spectrum of computing and engineering technologies, including graphics processing, video coding, telecoms and AI, building particular knowledge of drafting and prosecuting patent applications to overcome the patentability exclusions relating to computer programs and mathematical methods. He also has extensive experience of claim charting high-value standard essential patents (SEPs), both during prosecution and as part of litigation preparations. His experience of SEPs extends to active litigation, where he was part of the team working for InterDigital to secure the second ever global FRAND determination by the UK court.

In addition to patents, Arnie has a keen interest in other IP rights he believes are important as part of a robust, commercially focused IP strategy. This includes trade secrets and the implementation of trade secrets policies, a topic he has been invited to speak on in front of both domestic and international audiences.

Arnie holds a first class degree in Natural Sciences from the University of Cambridge where in his final year he specialised in astrophysics, graduating first in his year. He also holds an Msc in Computational Aeronautics from Imperial College, London, graduating with Distinction.

He qualified as a UK patent attorney in 2015, a European Patent Attorney in 2016 and as a solicitor of England & Wales in 2024.

Andy is a UK and European Patent Attorney based in Leeds. He has a PhD in artificial intelligence and his research was in natural language processing (NLP) building systems for processing and classifying text.

Focusing on software IP, Andy works across computer-implemented technologies, from AI and machine learning to computer architecture. He works with startups, spin-outs and scale-ups, and supports higher education institutions with IP strategy.

His experience extends to contentious matters, and he is an experienced advocate, representing clients in EPO oppositions and appeals and in proceedings at the UKIPO.

Steve is an experienced business tax partner, helping companies maximise their profits by the effective use of corporate tax planning solutions.

Steve works across all sectors and areas of business tax, however he primarily focuses on innovative reliefs, share schemes and M&A tax advice.

Steve has worked in R&D tax relief for over 15 years and now leads the R&D and Patent Box team across the Yorkshire and the North East and the share schemes team for Yorkshire.

Dr Bobby Mukherjee, Chief Counsel, IP & Technology Law – BAE Systems plc and Past President (2012-2014) of the IP Federation. He was the Chartered Institute of Patent Attorneys (CIPA) President for 2025. He previously served and currently sits on CIPA Council, and chaired the CIPA Internal Governance Committee in its formative stage.

Bobby is a qualified UK and European patent attorney with over 28 years’ experience of IP gained in private practice and at BAE Systems plc. He is currently the Head of IP (2009 -) at BAE Systems plc (a FTSE 30 company), which has one of the largest in-house IP teams in the UK.

Bobby has been named a Corporate IP Star by Managing Intellectual Property every year since 2015.

Chris Mercer joined the patent profession in 1975 and passed the UK Finals exams in 1979. For the majority of his career, Chris was either a partner or a consultant for Carpmaels & Ransford, with a large practice in oppositions and appeals at the EPO and litigation before the UK courts. Chris is a member of Council for CIPA and is also on a number of CIPA committees, including the Education, Patents and Litigation Committees. He is also on epi’s Council and on various epi Committees and was a founding member of EPLIT. Chris is a former president of both CIPA and epi. He appeared as an advocate in a Moot Court event in 1977.