This year – 2025 – is a special year for CIPPM as the Centre will celebrate its 25th anniversary. Established in 2000, by its co-founders Professor Martin Kretschmer and Professor Ruth Soetendorp, CIPPM rapidly grew in stature carrying out significant research projects on intellectual property (IP) and policy whilst also leading the way in IP education. One of the driving factors of the Centre along with IP and IP education, was its strong focus on interdisciplinary research, which in turn saw CIPPM lead the way in evidence-based policy from its very early days.
Since then, and over the past 25 years, CIPPM has conducted multiple research projects, informed policy and has continued its work in IP education. These have ranged, amongst others, from informing key policy debates and carrying out commissioned projects arising from the Gowers Review, Hargreaves Review, copyright term extension, authors’ earnings, unitary patent and unified patent court to the impact of new technologies on IP law (3D printing, blockchain, artificial intelligence, deepfake). During this time, CIPPM also gained a strong reputation for its interdisciplinary research, which in turn saw CIPPM lead the way in evidence-based policy from its very early days.
A cornerstone of CIPPM is its work on IP education and along with its flagship courses such as the LLM Intellectual Property Law and PGCert Intellectual Property Law (accredited by the IPReg Board), the Centre has won awards for embedding IP law into non-law curricula through projects such as the IP-engineering project and Copyrightuser.org.
A snap shot of some of the earlier work (drawn from the waybackmachine) can be accessed here. More recent research projects, public lectures, courses amongst others from 2011-present, can be accessed through this site.
In 2017, the Centre was awarded Jean Monnet Centre of Excellence status for setting up “European Intellectual Property and Information Rights” which was made possible through three-years funding from the European Commission’s Erasmus+ Programme.
In 2024, CIPPM was selected by the World Intellectual Property Organisation (WIPO) to host the UK’s only WIPO Summer School on Intellectual Property. The Centre has been awarded this status once again in 2025.
Along with the founding Directors of CIPPM Professor Martin Kretschmer (2000 – 2012) and Professor Ruth Soetendorp (2000 – 2007), CIPPM has also been directed by Professor Maurizio Borghi (2013-2021) and Professor Dinusha Mendis (2022-Present). During this time, the Co-Directors and Deputy Directors of the Centre have been Professor Ruth Towse (2008-Present), Professor Andrea Tosato (2011-2013), Professor Dinusha Mendis (2011-2021) and Dr Claudy Op den Kamp (2024-Present).
As the Centre reflects on the past 25 years there is much to celebrate. We will mark this occasion with a two-day event, titled ‘CIPPM 25 Years: IP and Changing Landscapes’ on 10-11 April 2025.
The programme for the 25th anniversary event can be found here.
We are very grateful to our sponsors, the World Intellectual Property Organisation (WIPO) Academy, UK Intellectual Property Organisation (UKIPO) and Laceys Solicitors for making this event a possibility.
