Trilateral Symposium on IP & Environmental Issues
- Contribution of patent system towards Carbon Neutral

Mr. MORI Kiyoshi was appointed as Commissioner of the Japan Patent Office (JPO) in July 2021. He manages JPO operations and oversees Japan's policy on patents, trademarks, and design rights.

Prior to his current appointment, Mr. Mori stayed in Kansai for four years and served as DG of the Kansai Bureau of Economy, Trade and Industry (2017-2019), and as an Executive Board Member and VSG of the Japan Association for the 2025 World Exposition (2019-2021), where he contributed to ensuring the success of the Expo 2025, Osaka, Kansai, Japan.

Stephen Rowan joined the EPO in January 2019 as Vice-President for DG1 - Patent Granting Process. He is responsible for the entire Patent Granting Process, from the receiving of applications up to and including opposition and the grant of the patent. This area also includes Quality and Business and User Services.

Located in The Hague, Steve Rowan is Site Manager for the branch of the EPO, which is the largest international organisation in the Netherlands.

Before joining the EPO, Stephen Rowan held a number of senior leadership roles in the Intellectual Property Office of the United Kingdom. These included the position of Director of Registered Rights, responsible for the end to end processing of patent, trade mark and design applications and the associated tribunal functions.

Stephen Rowan joined the UK IPO in March 1991 and, in addition to his operational roles, sat as a Principal Hearing Officer and worked on a range of policy issues covering industrial property and copyright. He was Head of the UK Delegation to the Beijing and Marrakesh Diplomatic Conferences and was seconded to the Prime Minister’s Strategy Unit (2004) and HM Treasury (2006) - working on the Gowers Review of IP.

He has an LLB (Hons) from the University of the West of England

The Hague, March 2022

Drew Hirshfeld currently performs the functions and duties of the Under Secretary of Commerce for Intellectual Property and Director of the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO).
In this role, he serves as an advisor to the President, through the Secretary of Commerce, on national and various international intellectual property (IP) issues. He also manages more than 13,000 employees and executes the policies, priorities, and programs of one of the largest IP offices in the world, with an annual budget of nearly $4 billion.
Named one of Managing IP’s Top 50 Most Influential People in IP in 2021, Hirshfeld led the agency’s response to the June 2021 Arthrex Supreme Court decision by implementing an interim Director review process that could be initiated sua sponte or by request from a party to a Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) proceeding, oversaw the implementation of the Trademark Modernization Act, and expanded the agency’s education and outreach programming to a wider variety of audiences, among other notable accomplishments. Hirshfeld also serves as a member of the Precedential Opinion Panel (POP) deciding issues of exceptional importance to the PTAB.

Daren Tang, a national of Singapore, began his six-year mandate as Director General of the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) on October 1, 2020. Prior to his appointment as WIPO Director General, he served as Chief Executive of the Intellectual Property Office of Singapore (IPOS), driving the strategic transformation of IPOS in support of Singapore’s innovation-based economy.
Between 1997 and 2012, before joining IPOS, Daren Tang held different legal positions within the Attorney-General’s Chambers and the Ministry of Trade and Industry of Singapore. In 2016, he received the Public Administration Medal from the Prime Minister's Office Singapore for outstanding efficiency and competence in the service of his country.
Daren Tang is a graduate of the National University of Singapore (Bachelor of Law, Honors) and the Georgetown University Law Center (Master of Laws, Distinction). He also attended the Advanced Management Program at Harvard Business School. He is fluent in English and Chinese.

Edward Kwakwa is Assistant Director General, Global Challenges and Partnerships Sector, World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) in Geneva. He served as General Counsel at WIPO from 2004 until September 2016. Kwakwa holds an LL.B. degree from the University of Ghana, an LL.M. from Queen’s University in Canada, and an LL.M. and a J.S.D. from Yale Law School in the U.S.A.

IZUMO Mitsuru is a graduate of the University of Tokyo, having specialised in agricultural structural management. In 2005, he established Euglena Co., Ltd. to harness the properties of microalgae Euglena. Euglena Co., Ltd. became the world’s first biotechnology company that succeeded in the outdoor mass cultivation of Euglena. Currently, Euglena Co., Ltd upholds “Sustainability First” as their philosophy and has developed the manufacture and sale of foods and cosmetics as the healthcare domain, the biofuel business, the bioinformatics business, and the social business in Bangladesh by leveraging Euglena and other advanced technologies.

Euglena Website (External link)

Andreas Schuster is Co-Founder of Orcan Energy and CTO. The stated objective of Orcan Energy is to harvest the vast amounts of waste heat from industry, transport and power generation. Orcan serves these fields of application with a technology platform using the ORC technology in order to transform heat into electricity or mechanical power.
Andreas Schuster is an expert in thermodynamics and is working since more than 15 years in this field of technology. At Orcan he was in the past responsible for the technology development, he was in charge of the technology transfer to Orcans Chinese JV company and the successful market entry in Asia resulting in the world’s biggest engine power plant equipped with ORCs for waste heat recovery. At present he is head of the Product Lifecycle Organization which is responsible for product development from the first idea including production und installation, commissioning, and service.

Stephen Katsaros is a world-renowned inventor and mechanical engineer. In 2010, he invented the solar light bulb with the audacious plan of providing light to millions of people living without modern energy services. Five months after the first sketch of his invention, Mr. Katsaros launched a for-profit company in Colorado called Nokero. Nokero (short for "no kerosene") is a social enterprise that makes low-cost solar lights and other products primarily for the developing world. Nokero is a leader and pioneer in innovating affordable small-scale solar energy and finding carbon-neutral energy solutions.

FUKUDA Satoshi has been working in the intellectual property field ever since he joined the JPO in 1995. He has performed various positions such as a patent examiner and an administrative judge, utilizing his technical knowledge. In addition, he has diverse experience in the International Policy Division at the JPO. He has also held various posts outside the JPO, serving as Director of the Intellectual Property, Trade Policy Bureau at the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry; and Counselor for Industrial Competitiveness, Secretariat of the Intellectual Property Strategy Headquarters at the Cabinet Office.

Yann Meniere joined the EPO as Chief Economist in 2016. He has many years of extensive experience of providing economic insights into issues relating to patents, innovation and economic growth and contributes high-level expertise and analysis to public and expert forums on a regular basis. Yann led the chair on IP and Markets for Technology at MINES ParisTech where he was previously a professor of economics. He also lectured on the economics of IP at Imperial College London, the Universite catholique de Louvain (Belgium) and CEIPI. His research and expertise relate to the economics of innovation, competition and intellectual property.

Dr. Andrew Toole is the Chief Economist at the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) and a Research Associate at the Centre for European Economic Research (ZEW). Dr. Toole joined the USPTO with experience in the private sector, academia, and government. While completing his Ph.D. in economics at Michigan State University, Andrew Toole was a Senior Economist for Laurits R. Christensen Associates where he conducted studies on total factor productivity, cost and price analysis, and competitive strategy. In 1998, Dr. Toole went to Stanford University as a postdoctoral student before becoming a faculty member at Illinois State University and Rutgers University in New Jersey. As an academic researcher, Dr. Toole was asked to advise on science and technology policy issues for institutions such as the U.S. National Academies of Science, U.S. National Institutes of Health, and the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA). In 2010, he joined the Science Policy Branch of USDA’s Economic Research Service. His research focuses on the economics of innovation, intellectual property, and related science and technology policies. Dr. Toole has published in the Journal of Law and Economics, the Review of Economics and Statistics, Research Policy, Management Science, and many other peer-reviewed journals.

BEKKU Tomonori was appointed as President of Japan Intellectual Property Association (“JIPA”) in May 2021 after serving as Managing Director (2015-2017) and then Vice President (2017-2021). Mr. Bekku has overseen a variety of Expert Committees and Policy Projects of JIPA and provided opinions on improvement of IP systems to IP authorities in various countries.

Besides the responsibilities at JIPA, Mr. Bekku is General Manager of Intellectual Property Department at Nissan Motor Co., Ltd., a Japanese multinational automobile manufacturer. With more than 30 years’ experience in the IP field, Mr. Bekku is leading Nissan’s IP portfolio management, licensing and litigation as well as promoting collaboration with business partners from IP perspective.

Before joining Nissan in 2004, Mr. Bekku was head of Intellectual Property Department at Mitsubishi Motors Corporation in Japan. He was also IP manager at Mitsubishi Motors America from 1993 to 1996. He received a bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering from Sophia University (Japan).

Head of External Legal Affairs of Michelin since October 2020;
Head of Michelin IP department from July 2005 through September 2020.

Born on 12 September 1957 in Belgium.
Graduated from Université de Liège, Electrical and Mechanical Engineer (1980), Industrial Management (1981)
Joined Michelin at Clermont Ferrand in December 1982, and the Michelin IP department in March 1983
1986-1987: CEIPI, Patent Module and Trademark Module.
1987: European Qualification Examination.
1988: French Qualification Examination.

Member of the board of ASPI (Association Française des Spécialistes en Propriété Industrielle de l’Industrie -- French Association of IP professionals in Industry) from December 2000 to December 2006 (Vice President).

Tutor for EQE for ASPI from 1989 to 1996, in charge of the EQE ASPI training from 1992 to 1996, member of PQC of EPI from 1994 to 1999.

Philip Petti is the Chief Intellectual Property Counsel for the USG Corporation, a member of the Knauf Group which is a global leader in residential and commercial building systems and technology.  Mr. Petti joined USG as its Chief IP Counsel in 2008 and is based at USG's headquarters in Chicago, Illinois. Mr. Petti and his team are responsible for USG’s worldwide intellectual property portfolio, licensing program, IP litigation, and trade secret protection.  This includes the intellectual property for USG’s well-known SHEETROCK(R) and DUROCK(R) building products, USG’s Sheetrock(R) Brand Ecosmart Panels, and many other industry leading technologies.  Mr. Petti, in addition, works closely with his colleagues in the Knauf Group on matters involving USG’s intellectual property throughout the world.

Mr. Sang Young Brodie is the Executive IP Counsel at the General Electric Company. He leads the IP legal team at GE Renewable Energy, which is a business of the General Electric Company, focused on onshore and offshore wind, hydro, hybrids, and grid solutions. Mr. Brodie and his team support a number of IP activities, including clearing NPIs and NTIs, developing IP strategy around key technologies, acquiring and maintaining IP portfolios, licensing and monetizing IP, enforcing and managing IP litigation, protecting IP from loss and insider threats, and managing cyber security. Mr. Brodie joined GE in 2012 after 10 years in private practice representing clients in IP litigation and complex IP matters. At GE, Mr. Brodie worked with the corporate licensing team and the corporate IP litigation team before taking lead of the IP legal operations at GE Renewable Energy in 2018. He is US lawyer located in the United States.