Intellectual Property Group (IPG) deals with all questions regarding Copyright-, Design Protection-, Trademark-, Patent-infringement, Competition- and Antitrust-Law and related fields of exclusive rights like Personality rights (especially the privilege as to one own's image) and consists of members specialised in some or all of these areas of law.
When we plan a new programme for a session, first, we pay attention to the members' latest experience of which issues were of interest to their clients, secondly, we observe new developments in national law and particularly EU initiatives on new Laws (Directives or Regulations to come) and, thirdly, we examine court decisions, with regard to their possible impact on the daily business of our clients.
We meet twice a year for a conference and we organize presentations on the above mentioned fields of law, done by our members themselves or by external experts; we discuss not only academic queries but we exchange experiences of our daily work; and of course, apart from the conference, we stay in close contact and in professional cooperation where the case may require it.
During the congresses, we sometimes have a joint session of IPG with another Practice Group. In the past we have already had two meetings with Sports Law Group and Corporate. The reason is that "in real life" different branches of law overlap and interfere, so that it is quite helpful to discuss a case from different points of view - by experts of different Practice Law Groups within EJ.