Introduction to FICPI’s Professional Excellence Committee

FICPI’s Professional Excellence Committee (known as PEC) focuses on how intellectual property attorneys do business as IP firms and thus complements the work carried out by FICPI’s Study and Work Committee (known by its French acronym, CET), which looks at the laws and the offices that we deal with daily.

PEC was established in 2009 as a result of the adoption of the second revision of FICPI’s Strategic Plan, to deal with matters of professional practice, with the objective of maintaining the standards of the IP profession to the highest level and further developing them, in addition to FICPI committees focusing on patent and trade mark issues already in FICPI.

PEC aims to provide information and guidance to FICPI members about practice management, to support firms in their everyday business life and development.

Therefore, PEC organises the Practice Management stream of FICPI’s educational meetings, such as its Open Forums, including sessions on the profession as a business.

PEC takes the lead in matters of continuing professional development, the promotion of standards and best practices, and the profession as a business. PEC helps by identifying trends in the profession and IP marketplace as well as challenges in the profession, and offers targeted advice.

It also deals with practical issues relating to IP asset management, IP valuation, litigation insurance and the like.

PEC working groups

PEC is organised into working groups and any member is free to raise any issue that might be of concern to them and of interest to other firms.

Some of the current PEC working groups are:

• Reaction against the new competition from service providers (Brace)
• Pricing methods and fee structure
• IP valuation
• IP practice management benchmarking questionnaire
• Best practices when automating workflow in an IP firm
• Profit generation in IP firms

PEC has also produced publications such as “Guidelines for Communications between IP Firms” and its “Report on Six Sigma Projects in IP Law Firms”. Both are available on the FICPI website (member login): https://ficpi.org/members-area/member-library/ip-practice-management-guides

The next paper that will be made available to FICPI members concentrates on engagement letters.

PEC connects through monthly Zoom calls, and group leaders are also free to arrange sub-group calls whenever needed.

Next steps: join PEC

Any member of FICPI is welcome to join PEC, share their knowledge and experience, present on a specific topic, or raise any current issue and discuss it with colleagues who might encounter the same concerns.

I am Anne Lévy, President of PEC and I lead the Committee together with two Vice Presidents: Louis-Pierre Gravelle from Canada and Louis Lagler from Switzerland:

• Anne is a partner at French IP boutique Brandon IP in Paris [email protected] or [email protected].
• Louis-Pierre is a partner at Bereskin & Parr in Montreal, Canada [email protected] or [email protected].
• Louis is a partner at Rentsch Partner in Zurich, Switzerland [email protected] or [email protected].

Please feel free to contact any of us and join the group or visit our webpage.

We look forward to welcoming you to PEC soon!

How FICPI makes IP attorneys more effective

Independent IP attorneys bring insights and counsel from a wider external perspective and a commitment to high quality work, complying with all relevant regulations. FICPI combines a dual focus on legal and professional excellence, through education and advocacy on topics around patents and trade marks, with a focus on developing the professional excellence of its individual members.