AIPPI Standing Committee on Trade Secrets – Roundtable 4 February 2025

Join us for a Roundtable Discussion on 4 February from 13:00-14:00 CET!

You’ll get insights from two judges on ‘Balancing Trade Secret Protection with Adversarial Proceedings and the Right to a Fair Trial’. Parties often feel vulnerable in proceedings related to or involving trade secrets.

On one hand, they may need to disclose confidential information to the court – and likely to the opposing party – to substantiate their claims. On the other hand, they fear being compelled to reveal trade secrets in response to extensive evidence disclosure requests, sometimes amounting to so-called “fishing expeditions”.

This roundtable brings together two experienced judges to explore this complex issue and the legal frameworks in Belgium and Switzerland: Frederic Blockx (Vice Chief Judge of the Commercial Court of Anwerp, Belgium) and Mark Schweizer, President of the Swiss Federal Patent Court.

Speakers

Frederic Blockx

Frederic Blockx has been a judge at the Antwerp Commercial Court since 2007 (and elected vice chief judge in 2024), where he deals with IP and unfair market competition cases, as well as with general commercial contractual disputes. He holds a PhD in Law (on professional confidentiality) from the University of Antwerp (2013), as well as an MA from King’s College London (2017) and a LL.M. (Judicial Studies) from Duke (2018).

Maud Fragnière

Maud Fragnière is a partner of Kasser Schlosser avocats SA, in Lausanne (Switzerland). Her practice focuses on intellectual property and competition law. She is a regular speaker at conferences in these fields. She is a member of the AIPPI Standing Committee on Trade Secrets.

Sophie Lens

Sophie Lens specialises in intellectual property matters, with particular expertise in trademark and patent litigation, anti-counterfeiting and parallel-trade matters, as well as trade secrets. Her legal practice also includes unfair market practices, advertising, as well as drafting opinions and contracts in IP-related matters.

She is an active member of the: ‘Association Internationale pour la Protection de la Propriété Intellectuelle’, ‘Association Internationale des Jeunes Avocats’, the French association, ‘Association des Praticiens du droit des Marques et des Modèles’, and the Belgian association, ‘Association Belge pour le droit d’Auteur’.

Mark Schweizer

Mark Schweizer is President of the Swiss Federal Patent Court since 2018.

Prior to this position, he has worked for 10 years as a lawyer in the IP team of a law firm based in Zurich and Geneva (with a humanitarian foray as an ICRC delegate in Afghanistan and Uganda).

He is the author of numerous publications in the IP field, including publications relating to the taking of evidence and preservation of evidence. Furthermore, he has been teaching IP law in various universities in Switzerland and regularly intervenes as a speaker in IP-related conferences and seminars.