The IP-Management program at CEIPI is by far the most successful executive management program in IP in Europe. Since 2005, CEIPI has offered a comprehensive IP Management education, for which it develops case studies with C-Level executives and heads of IP from industry to prove the success of its methods, skills and knowledge. The students and lecturers of the program come from industry, private practice, and institutions from around the globe. The IP-Management education at CEIPI is modular, ranging from University Certificates, over the Diplôme Universitaire Intellectual Property Business Administration (DU IPBA), the Master of Intellectual Property Law and Management (MIPLM, Master (II), LLM) to the PhD in IP management. Here is an interview with Adrien Lemoine, Head of the IP startup & innovations team at AGC Glass Europe, who graduated the MIPLM in 2024.

As intellectual property is the realm of intellectual creations, it affects every aspect of life, from medicine to art, technology, agriculture, etc. Every innovator is involved, and thanks to numerous organisations around the world, we are all invited to learn more about intellectual property and how it works.

IP is no longer just for lawyers. Every engineer, doctor or writer needs to know about IP so that they can protect the rights to their innovations and their contribution to society or the company.

And because the world of IP is so captivating and beautiful, it can really take you off your original life path and change it completely, as it did for Adrien. He is the perfect example of how the IP world can give your life a new direction.

As he said, he started out as a scientific engineer and little did he know his future life path and how much it would change when he began to learn more about intellectual property. Through a simple IP course during college and later as an engineer, he discovered the little innovator in him. At the time, he joined AGC Glass to become a patent analyst, but he couldn’t leave it at that, and CEIPI was the perfect place to realise his dream of becoming an IP professional. So he jumped at the opportunity to become a patent attorney.

The world of intellectual property and intellectual property rights is not just an area of science, it is essentially about human rights and there is a sense that you are protecting yourself and others. It’s about giving the innovators the dignity they deserve because of their creative spirit and soul. It’s supporting creative businesses and industry professionals and anyone who is on the path of innovation so that creativity is in everyone’s life and creates the modern world we live in right now.

And those who help to achieve this are the IP professionals and IP analysts like Adrien. They may originally be an engineer, a doctor or a writer who understands the various aspects of inventions, including technical inventions or computer programmes, and can create the perfect match between intellectual property and their innovations.

And there is no better place to learn about this than at the University of Strasbourg with the CEIPI, the EQE courses and the MIPLM, where you combine intellectual property with business and management so that you can deal with intellectual property from a business-orientated perspective. Here you support business processes, rather than just waiting for inventions to emerge by drawing a sketch or doing calculations or a small code file that inventors sit on for hours to make the code work and achieve the desired result, but to create a product that is patentable, that has a name as a trade mark and a unique form as an industrial design.

Since every intellectual property is a seed for a company to grow and take its place in the market, it is not just about an idea that exists, but about a product that is sold, distributed and represents value in the value chain. In the MIPLM, you learn about the commercial IP optimisation that is necessary for your invention and you can immediately apply your knowledge in the industry in which you work. Just like Adrien did after completing the MIPLM, where he immediately applied his IP studies in his IP meetings to develop the perfect IP strategy, where he leads the company’s innovation team and takes internal start-ups by the hand to get them on the right track.

Finally, IP is for everyone who works in the industry because every industry has the same goal, if you don’t create new innovation, you lose, if you keep up with your competitors, you are still in your place, you can’t grow and move up if you don’t create and innovate, that’s what IP management teaches you and it teaches you how to do it right.

About the author:

Zella Bulbulian is an innovation consultant in the Innovation and Technology Transfer office at the University of Aleppo with knowledge and expertise in the field of intellectual property and several certificates from WIPO Academy. Working together is her motto, working hard with commitment is her way, learning every single day is her goal. She is a mechanical engineer with a Master degree in energy management and made hits as sales engineer for years.