The week was all about work. As a result of a suggestion I made to the head of our agency last year, we were hosting the annual IP Statistics for Decision Makers (IPSDM) conference. This is the main event on the IP economics circuit, co-organised by the OECD and the hosting office, and it brings together IP office economists, academics, and practicioners from all over the world. It is truly a big event, we had been working with the OECD on the agenda, the speakers, etc. for months, and as the person responsible for bringing it to Alicante, I was slightly nervous as the week was starting. As it happens, it went well. So most of this week’s images were taken during the conference or during the various side events that take place.
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The first of those side events took place already on Sunday, at a hotel in the centre (our office cannot be used for meetings during weekends). It was a meeting of economists from IP offices around the world, co-ordinated by the World Intellectual Property Organisation (WIPO), an UN body based in Geneva. Only the bigger IP offices have an economics function, so this was a small event, with about 25 participants from around Europe, North America and Asia:
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The main agenda item of the IP economists meeting is for each participant to present the economic research agenda and other economics-related tasks that they carry out. Here is Hansueli Stamm from the Swiss Federal Institute of Intellectual Property. I think this is my favourite image of the week because of the interaction of subject and light:
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Andrea López from the Mexican IP office:
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Economists from three continents hamming it up (such as it is):
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The meeting continued on Monday at our office, which had the advantage of better meeting facilities than the hotel. This is Andy Toole, Acting Chief Economist of the US Patent and Trademark Office:
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Carsten Fink, the Chief Economist of WIPO, towards the end of the proceedings:
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On Tuesday morning the main event got underway. The conference was opened by the Executive Director of our agency and a senior official from the OECD:
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The conference was organised around 6 thematic sessions, each with a panel of speakers chaired either by a prominent academic or (because of a couple of last-minute cancellations) by a senior economist from the OECD or by me. But the first session, as planned, was chaired by Professor Ruth Towse from Bournemouth University in England:
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Another panel, chaired by Carolina Castaldi from the Technical University of Eindhoven in the Netherlands:
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In addition to the oral presentations, there were also a few “poster sessions”, as is typical in academic conferences. These are papers that were judged not suitable for a presentation (by the external Scientific Committee that made the selection) but still considered good enough to be shown in some way. This is one of those posters, with one of the authors, an ex-trainee of mine, Antanina, originally from Lithuania but now completing her PhD at the University of Padova in Italy:
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The purpose of a poster is for people to look at it during coffee breaks, and the author hangs around to answer questions and receive feedback. Here, Antanina is talking to Professor Rahul Telang from Carnegie Mellon University:
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Another important part of such a conference is a dinner in the evening of the first day, another logistical challenge given the number of participants, but we have a few restaurants around Alicante that are suitable for such events:
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The second day of the conference; Rahul Telang is giving his talk at a session chaired by Mariagrazia Squiccirini, a senior economist from the OECD with whom I worked most closely to get the contents of the conference lined up:
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Mariagrazia asking a question from the floor during the last session:
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I have closed the conference, and our communications manager Claire is taking advantage of the occasion to do a few interviews, like here with Amanda Myers from the USPTO:
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It is now Friday morning, a very busy week is coming to an end, and I make one of my early morning visits to our beach to enjoy the dawn and the tranquility:
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It is late October, but the beach is still being used a lot, and so the municipality sees to it that the sand is clean and smooth once the day begins:
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Hoops and nets:
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As it was the last Friday of October, we had the usual drink at noon. And we have a new Greek colleague whom we could introduce to the joys of working in our office:
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Stephanie with a bottle of Polish vodka that I had brought from my trip to Kraków in September:
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Stephanie and Kasia study the bottle carefully:
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Saturday, shopping at Carrefour. The silly Halloween holiday has made its way to Spain as well:
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The cashiers get into the act too:
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And the week ended in a pleasant way, with one of our lunches with friends:
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