The IP Federation is pleased to announce that Suzanne Oliver has been elected as the new President of the Federation, effective 12 July 2019.

Suzanne is a UK Chartered Patent Attorney and European Patent Attorney, as well as a Chartered Engineer. She has over 15 years of experience in patents, having entered the profession after working for a number of years as an engin­eer for Nortel Networks; she has a master’s degree in electronics from the University of York.

Suzanne has represented Arm on the Council of the IP Federation since 2013 and she supports a wide range of IP strategy, patent and trade mark manage­ment issues for Arm. Suzanne was involved in Arm, becoming a founder mem­ber of ORoPO, the world’s first open patent register. In 2016, Suzanne joined the launch panel for the inaugural “Women in IP” networking event, as a part of the UK’s “IP inclusive” initiative. She is also one of Managing Intellectual Property’s Corporate IP Stars for 2019.

Before joining Arm in 2012, Suzanne worked in a private practice law firm in Cambridge, UK.

Outside of work, she likes to travel, as well as spend time with her family and friends. She is also a keen rambler.

Suzanne will be assisted by Immediate Past President, Belinda Gascoyne.

Belinda is a UK Chartered Patent Attorney and European Patent Attorney with over 20 years of practical experience in all aspects of intellectual property gained both in private practice and in industry. She has represented IBM on the Council of the IP Federation since 2011. Belinda specialises in the fields of computing and electronics and has a degree in physics from the University of Bristol.

Belinda also represents IBM on the techUK IP Policy Group and the CIPA Com­puter Technology Commit­tee, and is a Director of ORoPO (Open Register of Patent Ownership). She is one of Managing Intellectual Property’s Corporate IP Stars for 2019.

Outside work, Belinda enjoys spending time with family and friends as well as swimming, walking and sailing.

She was President of the IP Federation from 2018 to 2019.

They will both work with newly elected Vice-President, Scott Roberts.

Scott is a UK Chartered Patent Attorney and European Patent attorney with over 18 years of experience in patents gained in both industry and private practice. Scott joined the patent profession after 10 years’ experience as a software engineer and a period lecturing in computer science. He has worked in-house at both British Telecom­munications and IBM specialising in comput­ing and telecom­munications technologies. Scott has represented both BT and IBM at the IP Federation since 2008 and chaired the IP Federation patent committee from 2016 to 2019.

Scott is the UK industry representative at the Standing Advisory Committee of the European Patent Office (SACEPO) and also sits on the SACEPO working parties for Rules and Guidelines. He represents UK industry at the Business­­Europe Patents Committee. Since 2009 he has been a member of the Examina­tion Committee of the European Qualifying Examination (EQE) for professional representatives. He is also a co-author of the CIPA European Patents Handbook.

Originally from South Wales, he now lives in the South of England with his wife and three children where he tutors maths, science and computing. He volunteers at a local NHS trust where he works with nurses to address the challenges in their professional practice. In his down-time he can be found indulging in dystopian literature.