LES Young Member Business Breakfast in Davos:
Although most of young members used the night to intensify networking at the hotel bar, many of them appeared at 8 in the morning to the Young Member Business Breakfast. They were rewarded by an extremely interesting presentation of Arian Duijvestijn, IP counsel of Philips. He works for this firm since 27 years. He started in Research & Development and moved later to IP. He learned to know many of the technical fields in which Philips is doing business; in the moment he leads the IP team in the lighting sector.
Arian explained that it´s the mixture between legal, business and technical issues what makes the IP sector so attractive. He explained Philips policy with regard to licensing and technology transfer. As he illustrated, in today´s business, licensing is often a process of sharing. Modern products often contain technologies from different fields and cover several IP rights which makes it necessary to cross-license technologies between companies.
Arian mentioned that the focus lies on achieving mutual agreements and, if possible, to avoid litigation, as it is cost- and time-consuming – time which could be used otherwise to bring business forward. However, of course, if there is a violation of IP rights (Arian mentioned counterfeits of their famous shavers which appear from time to time), Philips will undertake the necessary legal steps to stop this.
Arian provided the Young Members of LES a good insight how business life of an IP counsel of a big corporation is about. We very much hope to have the opportunity to listen to him again on a future LES Event.