01 October 2008

Interview: Trade mark priorities for Europe

Simon Reeves, director of trade marks at AstraZeneca, has just taken over as ECTA president. He talks about pharmaceuticals, outsourcing and OHIM fee proposals

One-minute read

Simon Reeves has worked in-house in industries ranging from ice cream to alcoholic drinks to healthcare. In this interview, the director of trade marks at AstraZeneca discusses the challenges of protecting pharmaceutical trade marks, why IP practice is changing and how he manages a global portfolio of marks, with a team of 19 people in three locations. In July, Reeves was appointed president of ECTA, which is refocusing its activities on lobbying and making trade mark owners' voices heard, with a new office in Brussels. In this capacity, he explains, ECTA will be increasingly engaged in debates in Europe and beyond on issues such as counterfeiting, enforcement and the cost of trade mark protection – something that he is closely monitoring following the discussions on CTM fees last month.

How did you get into trade marks?

After a law degree, I qualified as a trade mark attorney. Later in my career I decided that in the IP field it was a good idea to be dual-qualified: everything is becoming a lot more contentious-oriented. The registration procedure is changing and trade mark attorneys have to adapt what they can do. The company I worked for then sponsored me to train as a barrister in 2000.

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Interview: Trade mark priorities for Europe

How did you get into trade marks?

The rest of this article is available to subscribers to Managing IP only.

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