¶ Introduction and San Diego Reflections
hey , grillam . So I've been sending photos home so the family can see where I am , and I had a little walk around I think it's called seaport and took some pictures while I was going and after I sent them I had already thought this myself . I thought looks a little bit like portsmouth , and my oldest daughter said dad . She said you've kidded us , haven't you ?
You've not really traveled , you've not really flown for 12 hours , uh , 7 000 miles . You're actually in south sea . There you go . So I was describing it as real recently .
Now you're actually in South Sea . There you go . So I was describing it as real recently . Now you're saying it's Portsmouth , it's Portsmouth yeah , I'll tell you what that aircraft carrier is astonishing .
Yeah , midway , yeah , it's got lots of aircraft on it .
Yeah , I don't think they're not working , as far as I can remember I hadn't had you down . You surprised me , I hadn't had you down as an aircraft spotter that when I was a kid lived in Hong Kong . The aircraft carriers used to come and park around the back of Hong Kong Island .
I could see it out my window , and that was in the early 80s , and so they all had the Phantom F4s on them or something amazing . Did you ever go on ?
not on an aircraft carrier , because so in Portsmouth we had this thing , and it just shows how the world's changed , because they one now , but the big american carriers used to come in .
I remember the gordon canal came in and portsmouth harbour is deep enough for it to enter , and then american sailors would ferry you over there in little boats , so young teenagers , that you could go and wander around this big aircraft carrier , and it just wouldn't happen . Now I'm loving this booth .
Can you imagine if this booth was on the aircraft carrier ?
oh , yeah , could only be better . Couldn't if we were in a perspex box on an aircraft carrier ?
Lee Davis and Gwilym Roberts are the two IPs in a pod and you are listening to a podcast on intellectual property brought to you by the Chartered Institute of Patent Attorneys .
So , gwilym ,
¶ Welcome to Heather Steinmeier
great pleasure now to welcome to the podcast Heather Steinmeier . Heather , welcome , did I get your name right ? Do I feel the air fantastic ? So can we start off by you perhaps giving us a little bit of back history ? Can you tell us a wee bit about you , how you came to do what you do at Inter ?
Sure , absolutely . When I thought a little bit about this I realized I somehow have managed to spend my whole career in intellectual property and didn't even know it for about half of that time . I started working in publishing in New York in the 80s and then eventually moved down to law school and practiced law in both a corporate practice and a private practice .
But when I look back I think about that time in publishing and the exposure it gave me to content creators and the dynamics with authors and their rights that so perfectly has dovetailed with what I later ended up doing in the law .
So that part of my career I never really considered to be IP until I started to think about it more and realized how influential it probably was in that journey for me . And then , after working in a corporate environment for quite a long time again as a practicing lawyer , I eventually made the transition two years ago to working for INTA's chief policy officer .
Throughout my time as a practicing lawyer I volunteered at INTA so . I was on various committees .
I served as one of its officers I was the president in 2010 and so had that exposure throughout and grew to love the work very much , and so it was an exciting opportunity for me when the chance came along to work for the company directly so I've got some questions going , if that's all right I know , you've been writing notes , so I know you've got well .
Actually I wrote them police officer and I had to replace it with policy officer I got it right in the end so a couple of questions .
What area of publishing were you in ? Legal and technical okay so , and so my other question was it's quite unusual for someone in my experience , certainly in membership bodies in the UK it's quite unusual for someone to have held an office like president of an association and then go to work for it . How did you find that ? Because you know all the secrets .
You do know all the secrets , absolutely . I think it's just ongoing engagement , meaning not only did I serve as president , I continued to be on project teams and task forces and , you know , I think , hopefully along the way , demonstrated that I can bring something to the table in the area of policy development , and so when the job opened up ,
¶ Heather's Journey Through IP
it was an opportunity for me .
Amazing . And what areas of policy are you focusing on ?
Gee , golly , that is . There are just so many . To be very honest , we have 21 policy committees within the advocacy space , focused on all different forms of intellectual property , not only trademarks , but copyrights , designs , trade secrets , geographical-counterfeiting work .
It can also mean enforcement before courts and administrative bodies , filing amicus briefs and engaging directly in court interventions . We also have a huge interest in AI . I think you can't have any conversation in . IP right now without that topic coming up in some way . And of our 21 committees , 18 of them are working on something related to AI .
And of our 21 committees , 18 of them are working on something related to AI . There are so many issues we could go on , but that maybe gives you a flavor of some of the areas that we operate in . We also focus , if I may add one more thing , on , I would say , threats to IP , not just from a peer enforcement standpoint .
But we have one committee focused on what we refer to as brand restrictions , which is legislation which is well intended for perhaps another type of public policy purpose , such as health or environmental or linguistic and cultural protections , but can have an unintended effect on the way products can be branded and communicated to consumers , and those two things sometimes
require some education to legislators about those unintended effects . So , we also focus on , I would say , legislative challenges to IP rights .
That's why we know all about unintended effects from various trade agreements , because we'll have this little claw to the back of the agreement that says , oh and by the way , we don't do patents anymore , or something . It's like , ah , guys , guys , guys . So that's interesting , so there's threats .
Is it most on the branding side , or do you look at the kind of the bigger anti-IP issues that are around ? How far do you go with that ?
Yeah , it's fair , I would say both .
So certainly , the committee that is focused on brand restrictions is looking at the more specific challenges and issues that we encounter , but we are absolutely aware of what is sometimes referred to as IP backlash and the need to make sure that , as we engage with the world , backlash and the need to make sure that , as we engage with the world , you know it is
in a way that is that helps helps demonstrate the value of intellectual property to jobs creation , to consumer safety , to not being a barrier to innovation but , in fact , an enabler of innovation . With the subtext being , we want to counter that narrative but I guess I mean it was interesting .
You had a huge organization . You've got many , many committees looking at big issues of policy . You're going to get a lot of different voices within that , but I guess you guys are quite well represented between users , the owners of IP and the people who have to work their way around IP and take it seriously .
So I guess doesn't that balance help in terms of getting policy from both perspectives ?
Absolutely , and we consider our members to be an extension of our policy team , if you will . They often join us in the dialogues and the conversations . Their voices are frequently the most persuasive ones when we're speaking with legislators . They want to hear directly from business about the impact on business of the laws and regulations and practices .
If it's an intellectual
¶ Policy Focus Areas and Global Engagement
property office that they are putting forward in practices , if it's an intellectual property office that they are putting forward , they really want to understand that and having those various voices within our communities enables us to respond to that need and help shape where policy goes as a result .
Those legislators you're talking to , the actual implementers of policy , is that mostly in the US global ? Who do you talk to ? Who listens to you ?
Global absolutely In the US . Global who do you talk to ? Who listens to you ? Global absolutely so we have representative offices in all major regions around the world . But we also specific , so we engage . I'm mucking that one up .
Keep going . We like it . It makes it real .
Alright . Well , it's highly real in this instance . Let me try this again . So we have our representative offices on a global basis and they engage on a day-to-day basis with legislators , regulators , intellectual property offices in the regions they represent .
But then we also do formal forms of engagement that we refer to as delegations , where we take a specific set of people with a specific set of issues to usually a seat of government in order to engage with the legislators there and help address some of the issues that we see as opportunities .
So , for example , maybe two weeks ago , etienne Sanz de Acedo , our CEO , elizabeth Bradley , our president and myself and our Brussels team were all in Brussels on the ground . We met with members of parliament , we met with DGs at the commission , we met with IP attachés .
We met with members of parliament , we met with DGs at the commission , we met with IP attachés , we met with Business Europe . So we take our messages out in a very specific and deliberate way in that May as well , and we do that around the world . We have lots of trips lined up for this year .
So , taking that one as an example , first of all , that's a great group of people that you were meeting there . So , you just ticked the list of all the people I think I know about . Um , did you have kind of a list of issues ? Did you have to have one , one key issue that drives the visit , or how did you play that ?
no , we do have a list , you know , because we meet with a broad spectrum of people and so their interests are vary and we we want to discuss with them what's relevant with them . So , for example , with dg agri , we discussed geographical indications , just to give one example , but no , we definitely have a list .
A significant issue for us in this last round is anti-counterfeiting . It's always probably the number one topic for our membership Of interest and concern .
It touches so many businesses and the companies that work with those businesses from an enforcement standpoint , and right now there is an impact policy cycle taking place in the EU and we want to help ensure that IP crime is included in that policy cycle .
It is included in the current policy cycle , which runs through the end of this year , and it's been very successful , but it was iffy about whether it would be included in the policy cycle beginning in 2026 .
So that was an example of one theme that we brought up over and over again , if you will , with legislators to try to help them understand the significance of the issue , and it was very fortunate that we had our president , elizabeth Bradley , with us , because she comes from an industry that is heavily impacted by some of these issues in the IP crime space and
she was able to give direct examples of harm to consumers as a result of fake products being put into the market . Legislators really listened to that , so it was a very , I think , effective
¶ Anti-Counterfeiting and IP Crime
opportunity to send a message like that .
We've definitely had some debates about that in the UK and how far IP crime definitions go . Obviously , there are very clear-cut instances where it's wrong , and counterfeiting is always such an obvious problem .
I think we've seen it , though , going too far , I think , and in particular , things like when you get to more registered rights , like designs and so on , criminalising that kind of thing . It's just a really complex area and things need to be done to make sure that people don't make bad aeroplane parts and all that kind of thing .
But that debate is always so nuanced , isn't it ?
It very much is . There are people on all sides of the issue , you know , with viewpoints from every direction .
But I think , from our point of view , keeping products out of the hands of consumers that can harm them is the North Star . Yeah , and I think that maybe , as again with all your different interest groups , there's going to be dispute or a different point of view , but I suspect everybody's going to agree .
It's nice to have a nice core message that you can all agree on , and you mentioned various rights there as well . Obviously , there's increasing interest in patents now at Inter , which is fascinating .
Yes , absolutely . I think , from an inside perspective , it's an extremely logical next step in an evolution that's been taking place for some time . You know , obviously our name signals our origins and our roots in trademarks , but for a long time , we have done more than look at trademarks .
We've had committees focus , as I mentioned earlier , on copyrights , trade secrets , designs , other forms of intellectual property and how they all work together . In fact , there's probably almost no product in the market that isn't actually potentially protectable by more than one form of intellectual property , and what
¶ INTA's Evolution into Patents
we found was that patents are effectively a missing link for us , and many of the issues that we address now feel like there's a hole in our ability to perhaps address the issue fully and holistically because we have not yet adopted a point of view on the role of patents with respect to those types of issues .
I'll give one example With trade secrets , when there's a new innovation , there's often a fork in the road moment if you're the innovation owner about how you're going to protect it . Are you going to try to patent it or are you going to try to protect it with trade secrets ?
So we have a trade secrets committee which is capable and working into advice and tools and policy relating to the protection through trade secrets , but we're not really able to fully address that fork in the road , so it's important that we take that on . We also , I think , are always conscious of listening to our members .
We take all of our cues from them as a member-driven trade association , and a couple of other things that tell us this is the right direction to go in are that we hear from our members that in the increasingly do more with less environment in which we all work and operate , practitioners need to be able to take on more areas than perhaps are part of their
native territory , and so helping them have the tools to understand how to be a leader of a full-fledged IP department , even if your historic practice origins are in copyrights or trademarks . How to manage a patent portfolio and practice in order to have the tools and capabilities to continue to develop and advance in their careers is important .
The other thing we hear a lot about from our members is the importance of looking holistically at their portfolios , managing them holistically , their portfolios of intangible assets . I should say Managing them holistically , looking at all of the forms of intangible assets that comprise those portfolios , which clearly include patents .
For some of the biggest companies and for startups as well , right , it's how they demonstrate their value to investors in many instances . So we need to have the tools to support our members that also look at IP holistically , including patents . So there are many reasons why we're heading in that direction .
You know , certainly with any innovative company they need to go through all the rights and make sure they're covered . And the legislation side is quite interesting , isn't it ? Because , as you say , there's such overlap .
A simple example in my world is there's carve-outs in the Patents Act for some computer-related stuff , because at the time they were thinking well , copyright's got that and you've got to look at both of them together because otherwise either the overlap gets complicated or they miss something and something falls between the soles Right .
So is there a lot of interest in the patent side of things ? This year ? Are people signing up to all the sessions and everything doing ?
that ? Yes , I think so . You know there's good attendance planned for the patent series . There are four sessions there taking place on Tuesday One of them addresses that very fork in the road issue that I mentioned , and we're also looking at IP dynamics and enforcement and professional development . You know the other sort of dimension to this that I mentioned .
So it's definitely geared for our current membership on their journey to perhaps wanting to understand that space more , and there's a reception for patent practitioners as well and those who just want to know more about patents .
I've already seen quite a few SEPA members here , Willem . Yes , it's good to have them here , we're walking around so we know there are a fair few UK partners . Have you said yes ?
The enforcement ones are interesting as well , isn't it ? All these different regimes and Sorry , not regimes , that's like a political statement . What I mean is legislative regimes around the world with different approaches and everything . It's certainly one thing that SEPA does .
A lot is going around on behalf of its industry members trying to make sure that we understand enforcement and that it's a level playing field . So again , I guess that's part of your work there , but I guess I'm wondering are you representing the US industry when you do that ? Are you representing your global membership ? How does it work ?
Global membership . Absolutely , we very much want to represent all of our members equally , wherever they may be , and of course our members are themselves global , you know . So they may be headquartered in Paris but of course protect their IP in the US if they're multinational companies .
So our members themselves are global and require us to respond in that way as well . And I think you touched on something really interesting which we put under the label of harmonization , and sometimes harmonization instantly triggers the notion of treaties , but for us it really just means that level playing field right .
The more laws and practices are consistent around the world , the easier and more seamless it is for businesses to do business at a global level .
So that is a huge issue for us and I would say that that is one of the underlying themes of all of our policy and advocacy work is how do we encourage harmonization so that it is easier for businesses to protect and use their valuable intellectual property ?
I think Inter is obviously a huge name in the trademark sphere in particular . Is that what the T stands for ?
yes , it is that's clearly our roots .
I was going to come to this . Actually , we need to help you brainstorm a new name you're not the first to make this suggestion .
Pinta Intap , pinta Pinta Intap . I like .
Intap Int . I can't say it . Int Ta . I can't say it Int-ta . How do you do it ? Int-pa .
Don't you need a C for copyrights ? Work on that , yeah that's true .
Work on that as well . Yeah , I've only got silly ones now . Yeah , go Click on . All right , I was actually interested in your . You mentioned the corporate stories . There's always interesting to hear about people's kind of professional background , do you my last company ?
I worked for a couple , but my most recent company before joining INTA was in the healthcare space . It's called Elevance Health .
They do healthcare financing , healthcare data and also some direct delivery of healthcare , and there I was a vice president with responsibility for intellectual property but also all of the vendor contracting relationships , many of which turned on the creation of intellectual property . So that was actually quite a serendipitous cycle to have . And then also data privacy
¶ Conference Planning and Organization
and data protection , which was a hot topic in healthcare , just to say the least , yeah , yeah and very interesting here IMTA has a data committee as well , and even though that's not technically a specific IP right , it is an intangible asset . I mean they deal in intangible assets .
So data rights , data issues , things that impact data protection are all of interest to us . So those areas from my prior stages of my career have all been very useful here .
And that's an area I don't know anything about at all , but I know that it's really exercising a lot of people . So coming in from that background , actually having been there and knowing both sides of it that's useful .
Quick one . So I'm now concerned that I'm not saying INTA and I keep saying inter . Is INTA the preferred way to say it ?
So I would say that I take my cues from our head of communications who tells me I should say INTA .
Perfect . Okay , I will now stop saying inter and from now on , in . That's going to be difficult .
We answer to both yeah , Just like the dog is probably going to answer to Fido or my dog .
Can we talk a little bit about , because this is a big old conference , isn't it ? There's a lot of work that goes into it . Do you have much involvement in that , in the framing of the conference ?
So our knowledge and development team is really the primary group within the staff that makes all of this possible . But we do our part by helping to secure speakers , session topics lead some of the panels do some the the interviews that with , for example , capsule keynotes .
So we contribute , I would say , content and people to help make the program vibrant how far out do you start planning ?
when does ? When does planning start ? Honestly , years ahead of time yeah yeah , really so you're already planning for 2026 .
I know we can't talk about 2026 because it's all embargoed and everything , but you're already planning for 2026 .
Yeah , and have been for quite some time so , yeah , we'll look forward to that announcement then and see where we go with it .
Yeah , no , you're right to raise it . The organization of this must be an astonishing operation . I mean having organized pub quizzes and that nearly killed me . This is we've talked about pub quizzes already elsewhere , but uh , this is like the biggest pub quiz ever until next year .
¶ AI Policy and Future Challenges
What's what's big on the future policy radar ? What's coming over the hill for you ?
well , I mentioned ai earlier and I would be remiss if I didn't mention again now in answer to that question , because it is left and center in the work that we are doing in so many different ways .
We just passed a board resolution yesterday , which may or may not mean much from a process perspective , but what it really means for us is that we are starting to put a stake in the ground if you will on what we believe the right position is on certain foundational issues relating to the relationship of people and AI and how , the role of humans , if you will
, in oversight of AI outputs , and also the importance of transparency in the data that is used , both for input and output purposes . A lot depends on certain very foundational things and we're very interested in the development and utilization and success of AI .
Frankly , we really see the potential of it , but we also want to make sure that it is developed thoughtfully and with safety of consumers and humans in mind and with the fact that it is not taking place in isolation right AI is being developed in a system that already has a significant ecosystem around rights owners , and what is an incentive to innovation , what
creates jobs and what is the right balance to develop this new technology without undermining the benefits of what exists already that it's leveraging in order to be developed ?
Within that . So one of the big questions that we're asking ourselves . We've asked it at CEPA recently , but I work across so a peer group of two executives and other membership professional bodies and they're all quite concerned at the moment about data sovereignty . So we're all getting down and dirty with AI now .
We're using it and then you remember where does your data live ? Who owns it ? Is data sovereignty something that's on the radar ?
Yes , absolutely . I mean , I think from our perspective , there's two dimensions to it . There's not only data sovereignty , which is very similar to content ownership , right , do you need permission to use this data to train and develop your AI and , you know , should there be some mechanisms or system in place to ensure that ?
Does that slow down development too much ? Does it harm development not to do it ? Those dynamics but I would say another dynamic that we are very interested in is trust .
Right , I think one of the challenges with AI right now in terms of its usability for many people it has so much potential is whether you can trust the outputs , which is why human oversight is still required .
But one of the reasons that we don't always trust AI outputs besides the fact that it hallucinates and its algorithms perhaps still need work but is that the data it is trained on brings with it things like inherent bias , or it was developed for a different purpose , for which it's used for training , so it's not really fit for purpose , and that undermines the
trust in the outputs . So we're very interested in trust and transparency what data was used to train this AI and to inform its outputs , and what does that tell us about how much you can trust what the outputs are . Those are important issues .
I find it really , really reassuring that you're coming from a position AI is happening , it's coming . Let's be responsible about how we implement it , because I think some of the lobbying not from you guys at all , some of the lobbying I've seen elsewhere has been let's try and stop ai or let's , and it's inevitable .
But what's more , equally also also worrying , is that if you try and do that , then you won't have the ability to control . It'll still happen , but it'll be developed underground or by worse actors or with less good regulation , as it were , which is when it gets really risky .
So I think the approach you guys are saying makes so much sense , doesn't it that we're embracing ? It's going to happen . Please can we do it responsibly ? Please can we involve trust and deal with the issues . Let's let's not deny it's coming , though , because it's coming right .
The other thing that can happen if you don't sort of deal with those underlying issues of trust and transparency and why the outputs are sometimes not reliable let's fix that is that it leads regulators to over regulate .
You know they have the potential to say well then we just have to put so many constraints on it to make sure that it's safe that it slows things down dramatically . So trying to get at those root issues is important for more than one way , for for more than one purpose .
I'm thinking about it . I mean , we're always seeing legislation for new innovation and so on , certainly in the patent world . It then takes 40 years of jurisprudence to actually get it right . But you know , you've got to start somewhere .
You've got to start somewhere .
You've also got to stop somewhere . We're coming to time , gwilym
¶ Closing Thoughts
. Very good , perhaps a final question , yeah , I do like my segue so smooth .
I do like a segue so smooth .
Perhaps a final question . Are you sat there thinking , oh phew , they didn't ask me that . Or is there anything that you wanted to say that you've not yet had the chance to say ?
I'm delighted to be surrounded by 10,000 people who share an interest in this amazing topic of intellectual property .
Yeah , it's a fair shout actually .
You know and I didn't really get a chance to say how incredibly exciting and invigorating and energizing that is for me personally , but I think you see it in all the people around you and that's just a real privilege to participate in .
Actually , you can't walk around San Diego without tripping over an IP person or tripping over their lanyards those lanyards . I was in the gym when I bumped into two people with English accents chatting away and I thought , oh , maybe they're rock stars , aren't they ? But yeah , they were here for everybody in this city .
At the moment , it's like they're here for the Padres game .
That's it . Thank you so much for sharing your time with us . It's been an absolute pleasure , heather , and good luck with the rest of INTA .
Thank you so much . It's been a pleasure . Outro Music Two-Eyed Pizza . Two-eyed Pizza .