INTA President Rhonda Steele explained why this year’s Annual Meeting has the theme “breaking down barriers.” She said that these barriers relate not only to the changing demands of a global marketplace: “They also extend to new thinking about non-traditional marks ... to the relationship of trademarks with other forms of IP, such as design rights, and moving away from strictly national trademark regimes toward regional and treaty-based global systems such as Madrid.”
Steele said that she wants to use her year as INTA President to look at the challenges faced in the emerging markets and also to acknowledge the issues that these emerging countries have, such as the protection of traditional knowledge, culture and folklore—the subject of an INTA workshop on Tuesday morning.
That is just one part of an innovative program devised by Meeting Co-Chairs Peter Munzinger of Bardehle Pagenberg Dost Altenburg Geissler and Sara Blotner of Citigroup Inc. Munzinger and Blotner last night gave an overview of the next three days and highlighted the session on effective global branding on Monday morning as well as the global coverage of the various industry breakouts, sessions and table topics.
All the speakers were keen that attendees should take time to get out and enjoy the sights, sounds and rich history of Berlin. INTA Executive Director Alan Drewsen began the opening ceremony with a video that underlined the diversity of attractions in Berlin, while the co-chairs emphasized the number of historical sites, including the remaining parts of the Berlin Wall and the memorial to the Berlin Airlift. For her part, Steele stressed the cultural treasures on offer including the Gendarmenmarkt, the Tiergarten and Museum Island.
Drewsen described the growth of INTA’s membership to over 5,500 and said: “It is the hard work of all the volunteers and planners that keeps INTA growing.” He praised Steele for combining her duties as president with a full-time job for Mars that had led to her being ranked number 11 on Australian airline Qantas’s frequent flyer list. Drewsen joked that his high opinion of Steele had not been in any way influenced by the constant flow of M&M’s that had landed on his desk during the year.
