CIPA Congress 2022 – Cancelled
Despite the hard work of our staff and the CIPA Congress Committee, Congress could not go ahead. We were contracted to hold the event at the QEII Conference Centre, Westminster. Planned rail strikes initially threatened the viability of the event. But following discussions with QEII Centre management, it was agreed to hold Congress online from the venue. The death of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II, a few days later took matters out of our hands. The venue decided that it would be closed for the national period of mourning and Congress was completely cancelled.
Paralegals Conference
The IP Paralegals Conference was able to return to an in-person event and we were glad to see that the IP Paralegals were as keen to get together as we were, with 172 delegates attending.
The event was hosted by Chief Executive Lee Davies, who compered with his usual energy and humour. Topics included UK Intellectual Property Office (UKIPO) Transformation updates, Mental Health Matters and the ePCT, delivered by an international roster of speakers from the World Intellectual Property Office (WIPO), the European Patent Office (EPO) and the UKIPO.
Life Sciences Conference
The Life Sciences Conference was another CIPA conference that was able to return to in-person in 2022 and sold out, attracting 157 delegates. The conference is the UK’s premier annual educational and networking event for patent and IP professionals working in the pharma, medical technology and biotechnology sectors, providing a friendly environment for in-house and private practice professionals to network and share experiences. The conference was held over two days at The Midland Hotel in Manchester on the 28 and 29 November.
Topics included: latest developments relating to the Unified Patent Court; updates from the UKIPO and EPO; bioinformatics and AI and a special presentation by Prof Amin Rostami, University of Manchester, on “Caring for all permutations of comorbidities influencing the frate of drugs in special populations”.
