[The IPKat] [Guest post] UNION-IP Congress 2026: Crossing legal and technical borders

[Eleonora Rosati]

[Guest post] UNION-IP Congress 2026: Crossing legal and technical borders

 Eleonora Rosati Tuesday, June 30, 2026 - conference report, conferences, Guest post, Thomas Remmerswaal, UNION-IP

The IPKat has received and is pleased to host the following report, prepared by Katfriend Thomas Remmerswaal (EP&C Patent Attorneys), on the recently held annual congress of UNION-IP. Here’s what Thomas writes:

UNION-IP Congress 2026: Crossing legal and technical borders

by Thomas Remmerswaal

Networking, Kat-style

The 2026 UNION-IP Congress brought together judges, practitioners, institutional representatives and in-house counsel to discuss some of the most important developments in European and international IP law. Across the sessions, recurring themes included the growing importance of intangible assets, the rise of AI, the strategic use of ADR, the development of the Unified Patent Court (UPC), and the continuing tension between territorial IP rights and cross-border enforcement.

Plenary Session I: Keynote speakers on current IP challenges

The opening plenary session addressed the role of IP institutions in a changing technological and economic environment.

João Negrão, Executive Director of the EUIPO, discussed the EUIPO’s role in supporting businesses through accessible, efficient and user-oriented services. His remarks covered trade marks, designs and geographical indications, but also placed these rights in the wider context of European competitiveness. He emphasised the increasing value of intangible assets and the need for IP offices to base policy on evidence, including innovation indicators and data on investment in intangibles.

Steven Rowan, Vice-President for the Patent Granting Process at the EPO, focused on the quality and credibility of the patent system. He underlined that trust in granted patents depends on robust examination, technical expertise and legal certainty. The session also touched on the accessibility and cost of patent protection, particularly for SMEs, and on the importance of opposition proceedings as a mechanism for testing validity after grant.

Giulia Predonzani, Attaché to the Registrar of the General Court of the Court of Justice of the European Union, provided a judicial perspective, highlighting evidence, legal reasoning and procedural fairness in IP disputes.

Marco M. Alemán, Assistant Director General at WIPO, placed the discussion in an international context, stressing multilateral cooperation and global systems such as the PCT and Madrid System.

The session also touched on SEPs, FRAND licensing, competition law, digital platforms and AI. The overall message was that IP institutions must improve quality, efficiency and accessibility while adapting to technological change.

Plenary Session II: Mediation, arbitration and settlements

The second plenary session focused on the strategic role of mediation, arbitration and settlement in IP disputes. These mechanisms were presented not merely as alternatives to litigation, but as tools that can shape licensing strategies, market access, legal certainty and commercial relationships.

Heike Wollgast, Head of the IP Disputes Section at the WIPO Arbitration and Mediation Center, outlined WIPO’s experience with IP and technology-related disputes. She highlighted the growing use of WIPO mediation and arbitration in cross-border licensing, SEP/FRAND and technology matters. WIPO’s procedures were presented as confidential, flexible and well suited to complex international disputes requiring specialist IP expertise.

Sven Stürmann, President of the EUIPO Boards of Appeal, discussed EUIPO mediation, particularly in inter partes proceedings involving trade marks and designs. He explained that mediation can help parties reach practical, business-focused outcomes beyond the strict legal issues in formal proceedings.

Aleš Zalar, Director of the Patent Mediation and Arbitration Centre, explained the PMAC’s role within the UPC framework. Although independent, the PMAC is closely connected to the UPC system, which encourages ADR through information sessions and financial incentives.

Monica Leenders, IP Business Partner at Philips, added an in-house perspective, stressing that settlement and mediation are strategic business decisions. ADR can preserve relationships, manage uncertainty, reduce costs and support future licensing arrangements.

Plenary Session III: Confidentiality and standards of care for IP professionals

The third plenary session, moderated by Isabel Meenan of Hanna IP, addressed confidentiality, privilege and professional standards of care, with AI featuring prominently.

Patent analyst Bettina de Jong opened with a presentation on patent searching and confidentiality. She considered whether users can trust search providers to keep submitted information confidential. Her view was that professional search providers can generally be trusted because their business depends heavily on reputation. She also referred to qualified patent searchers following professional standards, including the QPIP global standard. However, she warned that AI tools used for searching and classification can be unreliable: they may misclassify applications, miss relevant documents or hallucinate plausible-looking but non-existent results. Human verification remains essential.

David Pearce of Barker Brettell expanded on AI hallucinations in legal proceedings. He referred to a database of judgments containing more than 1,500 cases in which AI hallucinations were a factor. Many involve self-represented parties, but qualified lawyers have also been criticised by judges for inadequate supervision of AI-generated material. The key lesson was that lawyers remain responsible and cannot delegate that responsibility to a machine.

Addick Land, UPC judge and patent attorney, discussed confidentiality and privilege in UPC proceedings. He noted that Rule 291 allows consequences for misrepresenting facts before the UPC, and also addressed confidentiality issues in FRAND cases, where access to patent information and divergent national approaches to monetary information can create practical problems.

Mr Justice Mellor of the High Court of England and Wales continued the theme of AI-generated submissions, drawing partly on his experience in COPA v Wright. He warned of the reputational risks caused by poorly supervised AI use and raised the question whether entering client-confidential material into an AI system could lead to loss of confidentiality and privilege.

Redvers Cunningham, CEO of PAMIA, closed the session from an insurance perspective, stressing that where a potential claim arises, early disclosure is essential.

Workshop 1A: Trade secrets in national and UPC proceedings

Workshop 1A considered how trade secrets are protected and managed in litigation before national courts and the UPC. The session was moderated by Véronique Pede, President of the IP Litigation Commission of UNION-IP.

Andrea Postiglione, Presiding Judge at the UPC Milan Central Division, discussed the Italian framework for protecting confidential information in litigation, including confidentiality orders, restricted access to documents and measures to safeguard sensitive evidence.

Cristina Espín Martí of Elzaburu provided a practitioner’s perspective, with particular reference to Spain. She highlighted the practical difficulty of enforcing rights while preserving confidentiality and stressed the importance of identifying and managing trade secrets from the outset of a dispute.

Peter Blok, judge at the UPC Court of Appeal, addressed confidentiality under the UPC Rules of Procedure, including the influence of the Trade Secrets Directive. He explained that parties seeking confidentiality measures should notify the court when filing the relevant material, as delay may risk losing the desired level of protection.

Workshop 1B: Software advances lighting up the energy revolution

Workshop 1B, organised by the UNION-IP Software Commission, explored how software-based innovation supports the energy transition. The session was opened by Simone Bertolotto and moderated by Virginia Driver.

Nina Ferara, IP Attorney at the UK Atomic Energy Authority, explained the role of software simulations and digital twins in fusion energy. Building a Tokamak reactor is extremely costly, making accurate modelling essential before construction. She also discussed software patentability before the EPO, using examples tied to concrete technical applications such as optimising Tokamak operations, and addressed the need to manage open-source licence compatibility in fusion research.

Javier Aleuanlli, Head of IP at Gridspertise, focused on smart grids. He explained that electricity networks face a major load revolution, driven by electrification and by “prosumers” feeding renewable energy back into the grid. He described a layered IP strategy: patents protect hardware-software interactions, copyright is supported by cryptographic proof of possession for code releases, and sensitive assets are protected as trade secrets. Suppliers are restricted to approved AI tools with no-training and no-retention policies to reduce leakage risks.

Workshop 2A: Copyright in the data mining era

Workshop 2A, moderated by Brigitte Spiegeler, President of the UNION-IP Copyright Commission, addressed the tension between copyright, text and data mining, and AI training.

João Pedro Quintais, Associate Professor at IViR and the University of Amsterdam, outlined the EU framework for text and data mining. He explained that copyright has become one of the key legal regimes for AI, both for training and AI-generated outputs. His presentation covered exceptions, licensing, machine-readable opt-outs and obligations for general-purpose AI models.

Paul Keller, Director of Policy at Open Future, approached the issue from the perspective of access and the public interest. He argued that the question is not only whether unlicensed AI training infringes copyright, but also how society should organise access to knowledge while preserving value in the creative ecosystem.

Thomas Nietsch, Partner at K&L Gates, focused on AI training and data governance. He addressed the difficulty of determining what data is used in AI systems and how transparency can be meaningful at scale. The session concluded that copyright law is under pressure from AI development and requires a balanced framework combining transparency, workable exceptions, fair remuneration and legal certainty.

Workshop 2B: The EU Pharma Package and its prospective impact

Workshop 2B examined the proposed EU Pharma Package and its impact on the European IP landscape. Gareth Morgan, a member of the UNION-IP Life Sciences Commission, introduced the objectives and structure of the package.

Damaso Gallardo Torres of Farmaprojects, Polpharma Group Spain, and Diane Adair, Head ROW IP Litigation and Regulatory Exclusivities at CSL Behring, examined the proposed data and market exclusivity regime from generic and originator perspectives. They discussed the proposed 8+1 baseline, possible extensions up to a maximum of eleven years, orphan medicines, the broadened Bolar exemption and a transferable voucher for priority antimicrobials.

David Rosenberg, consultant to pharmaceutical trade bodies, provided a legislative overview and considered the possible effects on innovation. Participants broadly agreed that the Pharma Package will have a tangible impact, but expressed concern that it may increase complexity and uncertainty without clearly strengthening innovation.

Plenary Session IV: Cross-border and long-arm jurisdiction in IP matters

The final plenary session, moderated by Véronique Pede, addressed cross-border and long-arm jurisdiction in IP disputes. The central issue was how to reconcile territorial IP rights with the increasing unification of European patent litigation.

Pede noted that territoriality remains fundamental, but recent case law has complicated its application. Following the CJEU’s BSH decision, an infringement court does not lose jurisdiction merely because validity is raised as a defence.

Edger F. Brinkman, judge at the Court of The Hague and the UPC The Hague Division, placed the issue in the Dutch tradition of cross-border patent litigation. He explained that the UPC may have jurisdiction over infringement claims concerning European patents outside UPC territory, while lacking power to revoke patents outside its territorial scope.

Andrea Postiglione, Presiding Judge at the UPC Milan Central Division, discussed a UPC case involving Italian, French, German and Spanish defendants, where jurisdiction was accepted for connected claims but the Spanish part was stayed because validity had to be decided by Spanish authorities.

Katalin Tözsér, judge at the Munich I Regional Court, presented the German perspective, while Maxence Rivoire of King’s College London addressed the UK position and possible responses by English courts. The session showed that territoriality remains a core principle, but its practical operation is changing. The UPC offers opportunities for efficient cross-border enforcement, but such litigation remains complex and must be used strategically.

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On 13 November 2026, UNION-IP will host a Round Table meeting in Amsterdam on the subject of ‘digital designs’ and protection of graphical user interfaces. For more information, keep an eye on the website.

Readers of The IPKat who are interested in becoming more involved in the European intellectual property community can engage with UNION-IP, an independent international association bringing together IP professionals from private practice, industry and academia across Europe. UNION-IP offers a forum for professional and personal exchange, enabling practitioners working in patents, trade marks, designs and related fields to discuss current developments, connect with colleagues from different countries and branches of the profession, attend UNION-IP events, benefit from member rates and become active in its Working Commissions. Those wishing to join can start the membership application process by completing the application form on the UNION-IP website; applicants for regular membership are asked to cite two current UNION-IP members as referees, and trainee membership is also available.

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