Pedro Tent Alonso
Partner, J&A Garrigues, S.L.P.

Pedro Tent (Law Graduate with honors from the Universitat de València and LLM from the London School of Economic and Political Sciences –Corporate and Commercial Law–) is the Partner responsible for the IP Law Department of J&A Garrigues in its Levante region; he is also the Partner responsible for the Litigation and Arbitration Department in the Valencia Office, and teaches “International Commercial Law” as an Associate Lecturer at the Universitat de València, and “EU legal system for the protection of innovation” and “Proceedings before the CJEU” as a Guest Lecturer at the Magister Lvcentinvs in the University of Alicante. Pedro has developed outstanding expertise in the field of EU Plant Variety Protection, leading multiple litigation proceedings before the Spanish Courts and the European Court of Justice (including the Nadorcott case). Pedro leads a team of PVR expert lawyers facing on a daily basis legal works concerning license drafting, prosecution tasks, judicial actions, and arbitration conflicts. He has delivered multiple conferences and speeches before Universities, UPOV, EUIPO, and other institutions in the field of PVR.

Ms. Kardiopoulis is one of the founding partners of HP&P and currently heads the firm’s anti-counterfeit/anti-piracy department. Over the course of her career as a lawyer, she has been dealing with a broad range of IP matters with emphasis on Trademarks, Plant Variety Rights, denominations of origin/geographical indications, and domain names. She has extensive experience in IP litigation, in devising and implementing anti-counterfeiting programmes, filing and administering customs actions, monitoring and enforcing IP rights online and advising on domain name disputes.

Ms. Kardiopoulis obtained her law degree with first-class honours from the University of Athens and holds an LLM from the London School of Economics and Political Science. She has been a member of the Athens Bar since 1985 and is admitted to practise before the Supreme Court and the Council of State. Ms. Kardiopoulis is member of the International Trademark Association, MARQUES and CIOPORA.

Ellen graduated from Ghent University and started her career at ILVO in 2000. Over the course of her academic career, she has been involved in different projects on molecular genetics in azalea, including the development and implementation of several molecular marker techniques. She obtained her PhD (Ghent University) in 2010 on the interaction of phenotype, genotype and gene expression for flower colour and other plant quality traits in azalea. During her PhD, she became an expert in RT-qPCR optimization and analysis for gene expression studies. As such, she is responsible for the set-up of all RT-qPCR projects at ILVO-Plant. She is currently a Senior Researcher at ILVO – Plant Sciences Unit – Applied Genetics and Breeding and is involved in projects on molecular genetics and genomics in several field crops and ornamental plants. Currently, Ellen is working on implementation of the CRISPR/Cas technology in the framework of the ILVO research program. Recently, she has also become one of the contact persons for the open innovation platform of Living Lab Plant.

Antonina Pakharenko-Anderson is a founder and a Managing Partner at Pakharenko & Partners, one of the first private law firms in Ukraine active in the area of Intellectual Property (IP) protection. Antonina is a Doctor of Laws, a registered Ukrainian patent and trademark attorney and is an expert on Ukraine’s Plant Variety Protection regime. Antonina has a vast experience in consultancy on IPR issues on both national and international level. At Pakharenko & Partners, she is also in charge of cooperation with national and international organizations and consults on policy-making issues as to IPR. Antonina is the President of the Ukraine Alliance Against Counterfeiting and Piracy (UAACP, a member of the Global Anti-Counterfeiting Group Network), the President of the Ukrainian National Group of AIPPI and the Vice-Chairman of ICC Ukraine on IP issues. She was also a member of the Scientific Advisory Board of the Supreme Commercial Court of Ukraine. Current memberships: CIOPORA, FICPI, MARQUES, INTA, PTMG, IBA.