Pascual Segura, director of the UB Patent Centre and industrial property agent, together with three other experts on training in patent-related intellectual property issues, has been appointed to the council of the European Patent Academy . This organization has been recently established by the European Patent Office (EPO) to promote training in patent-related questions in EU member countries.

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According to Pascual Segura, “this appointment reflects international recognition of the work done by the staff at the Patent Centre, but also responsibility regarding future training on patents in Europe”.

Established in 1987 and located at the Parc Científic de Barcelona (Barcelona Science Park) since 1999, the UB Patent Centre, in addition to acting as an internal agent that patents the inventions made by researchers in the Grup UB, organizes and participates in numerous training activities on intellectual and industrial property, often in collaboration with the EPO and the Spanish Patent Office (OEPM). In this regard, the Patent Centre has become a teaching centre of reference in Catalonia and throughout Spain, which explains why the OEPM presented the director of the centre as the only Spanish candidate to the Academy’s council.

The EPO Academy has a budget of 2.4 millions euros per year to promote training programmes on patents. These initiatives are directed to agents, corporate lawyers, judges, graduates and the public in general in the signatory countries of the European Patent Agreement, that is to say, all the member states of the EU, Switzerland, Liechtenstein, Monaco, Iceland, Bulgaria and Turkey.