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From Milan to Amsterdam—and even into orbit—LES is keeping innovation on the move! October closes with LES Italy exploring design protection and copyright in Milan this Friday, October 30, before November brings a fresh wave of opportunities to learn, connect and do business across the global LES community.
This week is also the deadline for workshop proposals for LESI2027 in Orlando! With so many great sessions last week in San Diego and this week in Seoul, there’s plenty of inspiration. What conversation would you like to lead next? Submit a workshop proposal for the LESI2027 Annual Conference in Orlando.
Coming up next week, LES France hosts its annual SEPs and FRAND conference in Paris, LES Singapore offers Basic and Intermediate Licensing Courses, and LES USA-Canada explores patent licensing and arbitration in Phoenix. Then, don’t miss licensing in space on November 10 and LESI’s Young Members Congress Pan-European Conference in Amsterdam on November 13!
Take a look at calendar highlights below and then more posted online. Save a date, connect with colleagues, and have a great week!
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LES Italy
"Design Protection and Enforcement via Copyright"
Friday, 30 October 2026
2:00pm - 5:30pm (CET)
MILAN, ITALY
On 30 November, LES Italia will bring one of the most topical and widely debated issues in intellectual property law to the table: the protection of designs through copyright, in light of the Court of Justice of the European Union’s recent ruling in the Mio/Konektra case and the recast of the EU Design Directive.
The programme promises a high-level discussion, beginning with an overview of the applicable legal framework and case law by Eleonora Rosati (Stockholm University) and Michael Ritscher (MLL Legal Ltd), followed by a comparative perspective on Italy, the Netherlands and Germany, with contributions from Giovanni Guglielmetti (BonelliErede), Tobias Cohen Jeoram (De Brauw Blackstone Westbroek) and Henning Hartwig (Bardehle Pagenberg). The event will conclude with a panel featuring representatives from the business community — Flos, Prada and Fiam — exploring how these issues translate into practice in the lighting, furniture and luxury fashion industries.
This format brings together academic rigour and an industry perspective at a time when the boundary between design protection and copyright protection is becoming increasingly central to Made in Italy industries.
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LES Singapore
"Basic Licensing Course"
Tuesday-Wednesday, 3-4 November 2026
SINGAPORE
Understand aspects of the licensing of intellectual property (IP) – particularly for trade marks, copyright, patents, and registered designs – at the LES Singapore Basic Licensing Course 2026!
Organised together with Intellectual Property Office of Singapore (IPOS), the programme will cover the various principles and procedures involved in licensing negotiations. Learn how to effectively apply them in practice, through a “hands-on” scenario.
The basic course covers materials useful to experienced licensing professionals, including pointers for structuring a deal.
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LES Singapore
"Intermediate Licensing Course"
Tuesday-Wednesday, 3-4 November 2026
SINGAPORE
Understand aspects of the licensing of intellectual property (IP) – particularly for trade marks, copyright, patents, and registered designs – at the LES Singapore Intermediate Licensing Course 2026!
Organised together with the Intellectual Property Office of Singapore (IPOS), the programme will cover the various principles and procedures involved in licensing negotiations.
Participants are encouraged to attend the intermediate course if participant has attended the Basic Licensing Course and has 1 year IP or 1 year of research experience or if participant has 5 years negotiation experience.
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LES France
"Annual SEPs and FRAND Conference"
Tuesday, 3 November 2026
2:15pm - 7:15pm (CET)
PARIS, FRANCE
9th Edition of The Annual SEPs and FRAND Conference - co-organized by APEB and LES France.
Sessions include:
- Presentation from ClaimsEvidence
- Round table – The Brokering of SEP Licenses: From Patent Broker to Deal Broker?
- Presentation from Invention Co
- Round table – SEP licenses, FRAND litigation, trade law and extraterritorial reach
- Judges’ roundtable
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LES USA-Canada
"Patent Licensing - Case Law Update & Arbitration Clauses"
Thursday, 5 November 2026
5:30pm - 7:30pm (MST)
PHOENIX, AZ, USA
A professor of IP law at ASU’s Sandra Day O’Connor College of Law and a patent attorney, Tyson Winarski brings the perspective of a professional who has both practiced and taught patent licensing, testified as a licensing expert, and written extensively on the subject. He is also an inventor with more than 52 patents and was named to the IAM Strategy 300 in 2025 and 2026.
Join LES USA-Canada's Phoenix Chapter for a practical look at patent licensing developments and what they mean for IP professionals.
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LES Brazil
"Live Discussion with ICC Brazil and FORTEC"
Thursday, 5 November 2026
12:00pm - 1:30pm (EST)
ONLINE
LES Brazil is hosting an online Live Discussion with the participation of ICC Brazil (representing enterprises) and FORTEC (representing universities and research institutions – similar to AUTM), and which aims to gather the perspectives of science and technology institutions and companies to discuss the innovation landscape in Brazil, the developments of the Legal Framework for Science, Technology, and Innovation, and the ways to strengthen university–industry cooperation and technology transfer.
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LES USA-Canada
"Enforcing IP in the Exo-Economy (Licensing in Space)"
Tuesday, 10 November 2026
4:00pm - 5:30pm (EST)
ONLINE
Strategies for Ownership, Jurisdiction, and Assertive Licensing in Space Operations
As the commercial space sector expands into a thriving off-world market, asserting and enforcing intellectual property beyond Earth presents unprecedented legal, jurisdictional, and operational hurdles.
"Enforcing IP in the Exo-Economy (Licensing in Space)" brings together leading experts from legal academia, civil space, national research facilities, and commercial NewSpace pioneers to explore how organizations can secure freedom-to-operate, enforce patents in orbit, and execute assertive licensing strategies across international boundaries.
Featuring perspectives from NASA Johnson Space Center, the Ole Miss Center for Air and Space Law, Relativity Space, former SpaceX counsel, and Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, this session will offer critical insights for protecting baseline space technology, managing jurisdictional ambiguity, and safeguarding off-world innovation as space operations scale.
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LES Switzerland & LES Germany
"Development and License Agreements in Life Sciences"
Thursday, 12 November 2026
8:30am - 6:00pm (CET)
BASEL, SWITZERLAND
Join on 12 November 2026 in Basel for a seminar dedicated to designing robust development and license agreements and managing risks across the lifecycle of life sciences collaborations.
The seminar is organized by LES Switzerland in cooperation with LES Germany.
Bringing together senior in-house legal counsel from global pharmaceutical innovators, a member of the Swiss Competition Commission, and leading practitioners, the program explores both strategic deal making and practical risk allocation.
Sessions address key challenges across the collaboration lifecycle, including:
- Structuring deal architecture and long-term governance;
- Drafting dispute-proof financial clauses (upfronts, milestones, royalties, etc.);
- Allocating ownership and access rights to IP, improvements and data;
- Navigating termination and exit rights, post-termination mechanics, and party insolvency;
- Reviewing Swiss and EU competition law trends;
- Resolving complex disputes arising out of license and development agreements.
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LES USA-Canada
"Unfettered Invention-How the X Patents Sparked America's Technology"
Thursday, 12 November 2026
12:00pm - 1:00pm (EST)
ONLINE
Dr. Julie Burke, PhD. (Founder, IP Quality Pro, and former USPTO Patent Examiner) in her new book 'Unfettered Invention, How the X Patents Sparked Early American Technology' reveals hundreds of lost 19th-century patent records and uncovers the original downfall of the original U.S. Patent Office: severe underfunding, fixed fees, and a refusal to adopt modern tools.
Today, the USPTO faces these same administrative traps as it struggles under a massive backlog. Instead of fixing its fragile, legacy IT systems, agency leadership is rushing to layer automated search engines on top of a broken foundation. Bound by an applicant-fee model, the agency lacks the direct funding that other federal branches use to rebuild basic infrastructure. By ignoring the historical lessons of 1836, the USPTO risks replacing a physical disaster with a modern, digital failure.
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LES USA-Canada
"When Everyone Has AI, What Sets Your Company Apart?"
Thursday, 12 November 2026
11:00am - 2:00pm (PST)
MENLO PARK, CA, USA
AI is changing how new technology gets developed, from software and chip design to drug discovery and materials. That raises new questions about what is worth patenting, how to protect it, and what makes a patent portfolio commercially valuable.
Join the LES USA-Canada Silicon Valley Chapter for a panel on how patent strategy should evolve with AI-driven innovation. Panelists include executives from Google and other AI and IP leaders. The panel will look at how AI is reshaping patent search, drafting, and prosecution, and address the larger question: how do you turn faster innovation into lasting competitive advantage?
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LES USA-Canada
"Licensing & Valuation in Action:
From Deal to Dispute - Navigating IP Resolution and Litigation Damages"
Thursday, 12 November 2026
6:00pm - 8:00pm (EST)
NEW YORK, NY, USA
Building on the previous session focused on structuring agreements to avoid disputes, this next installment explores the realities of what happens when deal negotiations break down and parties must navigate deadlocks, dispute resolution, or full-scale litigation.
Panelists will share practical strategies for alternative dispute resolution, including the use of neutral intermediaries to find low-cost ways out of complex valuation disagreements. The panel will also explore IP litigation damages, sharing case studies on how valuation models must sharpen to hold up under evidentiary standards like Daubert. Guidance will be provided on how to translate these litigation methodologies into practical valuation insights for every day, out-of-court deal-making and licensing.
Speakers:
- Candice Cornelius, Managing Director, Stout
- Steve Holzen, Managing Director, Stout
- David Yurkewish, Senior Managing Director, Ankura
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LESI Young Members Congress (YMC)
"YMC 2026 Pan-European Conference"
Friday, 13 November 2026
9:00am - 6:00pm (CET)
AMSTERDAM, NETHERLANDS
UNBOUND MINDS: BREWED FOR CHANGE
(De)regulation, enforcement & business-minded IP strategy
LES Benelux YMC, together with the support of its board and LESI, is delighted to organise the 13th Pan European LESI Young Members Congress Conference in Amsterdam, the Netherlands, on November 13, 2026.
In the city of the free spirit, they will explore a timely question: is “(de)regulation” to foster European competitiveness enforceable or desirable for both hard IP and soft IP?
Topics that will be discussed include:
- Updates on EU competition rules for technology licensing: practical implications
- The EU Pharma Package – Incentives and Access
- Knowledge Dissemination, Transparency Obligations & Trade Secrets
- UPC & PMAC
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LES USA-Canada
"Limitations and Purpose of IP Valuation and License Grant"
Monday, 16 November 2026
10:30am - 2:00pm (CST)
CEDAR RAPIDS, IA, USA
Co-hosted by the LES USA-Canada Iowa Chapter & the Minnesota NCMA.
The topics will explore IP contractual impacts of Value and the Grant.
Morning Session: Value Driving IP Terms in the License
Afternoon Panel: Dissecting and Understanding License Grant Verbiage
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LES USA-Canada
"IP Valuation from Theory to Practice Part 2:
How Do Experts Determine IP Value - The Mechanics of IP Valuation"
Tuesday, 17 November 2026
12:00pm - 1:00pm (EST)
ONLINE
This 50-minute webinar (hosted by LES USA-Canada's High Technology Sector) will provide a practical overview of how valuation professionals determine the economic value of intellectual property (“IP”) and the professional judgment involved in that process.
The program will begin with the critical first step of defining the valuation problem, including the IP being valued, the standard and premise of value, the valuation date, and the purpose of the analysis. The presenters will then examine the three traditional valuation approaches—income, market, and cost—and commonly used methodologies. The discussion will highlight the strengths and limitations of each approach and why different circumstances may call for different methodologies. The webinar will also explore the key qualitative factors that can drive IP value.
Throughout the program, the presenters will emphasize that IP valuation is not simply a mechanical calculation, but an exercise that requires the integration of financial analysis, market evidence, IP-specific considerations, and professional judgment to develop a supportable conclusion of value.
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LESI Innovation Trends Committee
"Practical Frameworks and Risk Pathways in AI and Data Licensing: Part 1"
Wednesday, 18 November 2026
2:00pm - 3:00pm (CET)
ONLINE
Objects, Models and Methods of AI Licensing
Join LESI's Innovation Trends Committee's Data Monetization & AI Licensing Working Group for Part 1 of their online series. This webinar will identify the licensing stops in the value chain of an AI system, explain the various licensing methods and provide an overview of practical challenges.
Takeaways for the audience:
- A map of what can be licensed in an AI system
- How to choose a licensing model
- A checklist of essential clauses
Panelists:
- Madelein Kleyn
- Subodh Kumar
- Sinan Erkan
- Arved Waltemathe (moderator)
Part 2 will take place in January 2027.
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LES USA-Canada
"Brand Expansion & Licensing Part 9: Own-able – Transcending Commodity Status"
Wednesday, 18 November 2026
12:00pm - 1:00pm (EST)
ONLINE
What does it actually take for a brand to stop being just another option on the shelf and become something people feel they own a piece of?
In this session, Pete Canalichio (Founder and Managing Partner, Brandalive) will dig into the LASSO Framework's Own-ability pillar — the legal, emotional, territorial, and monetary claims that separate a defensible brand from a commodity — through real cases like Apple's decade-long IP strategy (and its billion-dollar showdown with Samsung), Coca-Cola's $5,000 jewel-encrusted collector cans, and CrossFit's meteoric rise from 13 gyms to a $4 billion global movement built on a radically simple licensing model.
He'll also look at how nonprofit giants like Sesame Workshop and the Girl Scouts have built licensing programs worth hundreds of millions by owning something far more powerful than a product — an idea people want to belong to.
Whether you're protecting what you've already built or figuring out how far you can extend it, you'll leave with a sharper set of questions for deciding what your brand truly owns — and what that's worth.
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To get the most out of the Licensing Executives Society International, active participation in the activities and events of the Licensing Executives Society International is a must. And what better way to do that than to join a Committee and to participate in its events and activities.
The LESI Industry, Professional and Regional Committees are open to any LES member worldwide and the Committees are always looking for new talent to support and drive forward the objectives of the Licensing Executives Society International.
Join an LESI Committee
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If you have any questions about the events or joining a committee,
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