The list is in five categories, which you can access individually below. The full rundown is also listed in each section.
To reflect Managing IP’s focus on tracking in-house IP strategies, the top 50 is weighted more heavily towards counsel, who can be found in the industry leaders section. You will also notice a section dedicated to judges, again in response to our efforts this year to interview the senior IP judiciary. Where we have spoken to someone on our top 50 list, a link to a full interview is provided.
As you can see, our top 50 hail from all walks of life – in some cases they are not even human, nor are they all IP specialists. However, we believe that all those on the list have made a significant contribution to IP in some shape or form this year, explaining why in each write-up. It is worth noting that anyone whose main job involves working for a law firm is not eligible for the list; they are rated and ranked in many other places (including IP STARS).
The names were picked by Managing IP’s journalists with some assistance from our readers. To be clear, no one paid to be included in this list. This is not intended as a definitive ranking, but rather the start of a debate, so we have not ranked the top 50 but placed them in alphabetical order in the relevant section.
For those who feature on the 2019 top 50, well done! If you would like to compare this year’s list to 2018’s, you can view that here. Enjoy!