Peter Wild, a long-time MARQUES Council and Team member, gave the Kay Uwe Jonas Memorial Lecture at the MARQUES Spring Meeting in Frankfurt last week and was also presented with the David Goldring Volunteer Award.

During some 20 years of service to MARQUES, Peter was Chair of the Programming Team and Vice-Chair of the Dispute Resolution Team. Among his achievements were the launch of the Luxury Brands Symposium, which has now been held three times.

Since retiring from IP practice last year, Peter has focused on charity work and fundraising, and is now a member of the Council of Human Rights Watch in London. In the Kay Uwe Jonas lecture, he spoke about “dignity, fairness and freedom” in the law.

In the lecture, Peter identified four main ways that IP and human rights interact: (1) IP rights as rights to property, for example in Article 17(2) of the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights; (2) potential tensions between protection of IP rights and free speech defences, such as in recent NFT cases; (3) human rights issues in supply chains of branded products; and (4) in the reliance on independent justice and due process.

“These aspects come under pressure and we need to stand up against the violations,” said Peter. But he added that standing up in this way “can be painful” and said: “We should put human rights on the list of our concerns and actions, and not abuse them for short-term gain.”

After the speech, Peter was presented with the David Goldring Award by Willem Leppink of the MARQUES Executive Team and Ingrid de Groot, MARQUES Internal Relations Officer (pictured left).

More than 150 MARQUES Council and Team members attended the Spring Meeting to discuss current and planned MARQUES activities and events. During the Meeting, Antony Douglass of Specsavers became MARQUES Chair, while Claudia Pappas of Thyssenkrupp became 1^st Vice-Chair and Leo Longauer of LVMH became 2^nd Vice-Chair (pictured right).

Look out for an interview with Antony about his plans and priorities as Chair, which will be available soon!