140 Years PNZ Aachen - A Successful Celebration in the Skylounge of RWTH Aachen University
On 20.10.2022, the PNZ Aachen celebrated its 140th anniversary with its long-standing companions in the Skylounge of RWTH Aachen! Guests had even travelled from faraway Berlin. It was a great pleasure and honour that Heiko Sabien, Head of Division Customer Relations and External Information Services, his colleague Matthias Gibtner from the IDZ (Information and Service Centre Berlin), from the German Patent and Trade Mark Office and Arne Krüger, Chairman of the Board of the Association of German Patent Information Centres PIZnet, took the long way to congratulate personally!
Prof. Alois Krieg, Vice-Rector for Academic Affairs at RWTH, opened the round of well-wishers, followed by Dr. Jochen Johannsen, the newly appointed library director of the university library. The PNZ has been cooperating with the Aachener Gesellschaft für Innovation und Technologietransfer mbH (AGIT) and the IHK Aachen for more than twenty years. Sven Pennings, Managing Director of AGIT and Markus Wolff, Innovation Consultant at the IHK Aachen brought greetings from the respective houses and praised the good and friendly cooperation.
Two extremely interesting lectures formed the thematic block of the ceremony. Dr. Rupert Herzog, patent examiner at the German Patent and Trade Mark Office, gave a lecture on standard essential patents (SEP). His exciting presentation of the problems of standardization and patenting in the field of state-of-the-art technologies was actively discussed in the audience. In the second presentation, Dr. Stefan Luginbühl, Head of the European Legal Affairs Division, European Patent Office, presented the latest developments in the European Unitary Patent and pointed out the differences to the European Bundled Patent. A novelty was the hybrid character of the event. Mr. Luginbühl was connected for his lecture from Munich – the technology makes it possible!
Dr. Susanne Ruffert, Head of the Patent and Standards Centre, informed the audience in a witty outline of the last 140 years about the development of the PNZ from a display point to an information centre and presented the current consulting and research offers. In the beautiful ambience of the Skylounge with a view over the city of Aachen, the PNZ, the cooperation and the next ten years could be toasted in bright sunshine - an all-round successful event. Many thanks to everyone involved!