WTR and IAM are pleased to announce that four individuals will be inducted into the IP Hall of Fame this year: Judge Klaus Grabinski, Annette Kur, Jenni Lukander and Shira Perlmutter.
After a selection process that ran between February and April, these four inductees were voted for by the IP Hall of Fame Academy, which consists of current inductees and other IP luminaries. Grabinski, Kur and Perlmutter were chosen from a list of nominees put forward by the broader IP community, while Lukander was selected from a shortlist of candidates (chosen by the IAM editorial team from the longlist of public nominees) for the Q Todd Dickinson Award, which honours those who have made a significant contribution to IP as a business asset.
Judge Klaus Grabinski – As President of the Unified Patent Court (UPC) Court of Appeal, Judge Grabinski is the most senior judge at the new pan-EU court and is playing a crucial role in the harmonisation of UPC case law. The Court of Appeal has already handed down more than 25 orders/decisions despite the fact that no full, on-the-merits decision has yet been handed down by the UPC court of first instance. Before being appointed to his current position, Grabinski served as a judge at Germany’s highest court, the Federal Court of Justice. Before that, he was a long-serving judge on the bench at both the Dusseldorf Regional Court and the Dusseldorf Higher Regional Court– two of Europe’s most important courts for patent infringement disputes.
Annette Kur – A leading IP scholar and thought leader, Annette Kur has made an important impact on the development of European trademark and design law. Holding senior research roles at the Max-Planck-Institute for Intellectual Property in Munich until 2022, Kur was a co-author of the “Overall Evaluation of the Functioning of the European Trade Mark System” report, which formed the basis for a major reform of the region’s trademark system in 2015.
Jenni Lukander – President of Nokia Technologies, Jenni Lukander is one of the world’s foremost patent licensing and monetisation professionals. Having previously held several senior positions in the Nokia team, which Lukander joined in 2007, she took responsibility for the Finnish company’s patent business in 2018 and assumed her current role in 2019. Since then, Lukander has spearheaded Nokia’s 5G smartphone patent licence renewal cycle. Completed in 2024, this produced seven major SEP deals between late 2022 and the opening months of this year. She has also overseen the rapid growth of Nokia’s annual licensing revenues from New Segments, which rose from virtually zero in 2019 to €100 million in 2022 and €150 million in 2023. She started her legal career two decades ago at a Helsinki law firm, where competition law was her primary focus.
Shira Perlmutter – Director of the US Copyright Office and Register of Copyrights since 2020, Shira Perlmutter has made a lasting impact on IP policy during her long career. She previously served as chief policy officer and director for international affairs at the USPTO – a position that she held from 2012 – and as executive vice president for global legal policy at the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry. Perlmutter also worked in-house at Time Warner, where she was vice president and associate general counsel for IP policy. She is currently in her second stint at the Copyright Office, which she first joined as associate register for policy and international affairs in 1995. Before that, Perlmutter was a law professor at The Catholic University of America.
Responding to news of their inclusion, this year’s inductees said the following:
The IP Hall of Fame brings together individuals who have made outstanding contributions to IP law. It is a great honour and pleasure for me to become part of this circle, which already includes such eminent judges as Robin Jacob, Lord David Kitchen, Hugh Laddie, Richard Linn, Paul Michel, Kathleen O’Malley, Peter Meier-Beck, Pauline Newman, and Randall Rader. Trying to live up to this standard will be a real challenge.
– Klaus Grabinski
This is such an unexpected honour! I am deeply touched and humbled to be included among so many outstanding personalities in the field of intellectual property.
– Annette Kur
I’m delighted and humbled to receive the Todd Dickinson Award and to be inducted into the IP Hall of Fame. It is a great honour, especially when I look at the list of previous inductees. I’d like to thank everyone I have worked with over the years, in particular those I have learnt from and the world-class team I lead today.
– Jenni Lukander
It is a true honor to be inducted into the IAM IP Hall of Fame and to join such an illustrious group of IP leaders from around the world. I am grateful to IAM for this recognition, and look forward to continuing our common project of fostering a dynamic and thriving copyright system.
– Shira Perlmutter
