2025 Design Rights Summit
October 29, 2025 9:00 AM to 5:00 PM
Location
Washington, DC
Contact
Credits
Up to 375 Minutes CLE
Registration
Its more than just design patents
Join AIPLA for its first design rights summit and get insights from leading practitioners from around the world on the latest developments in copyright, trade dress and design patents. In this online age, protecting the appearance of products has never been more important.
This Summit is being held in conjunction with the Annual Meeting.
Register for both events and save $50 off registration.
Summit is full!
To register for the Design Rights Summit on its own, please use the register button on this page.
Thank you to our program sponsors!

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Agenda:
| 8:30 to 9:00 | Registration |
| 9:00 to 9:10 | Opening remarks |
| 9:10 to 9:45 | Update on Recent Developments in European Design Copyright- Michael Ritscher, MLL Legal Geneva, Switzerland |
| 9:45 to 10:00 | Break |
| 10:00 to 10:35 | Hague System - Sidney Gray - WIPO; Quan Ling Sim - WIPO, Geneva Switzerland |
| 10:35 to 11:10 | US Trade Dress Case Law Update- Ted Davis, Kilpatrick Townsend, Atlanta, GA |
| 11:10 to Noon | Case Law and Prosecution Updates Related to the Title Trifecta of Curver, Columbia, and Surgisil - Scott B, Amankatia, The Marbury Law Group, Fairfax, VA |
| Noon to 1:30 | Lunch break -attendees on their own |
| 1:30 to 2:05 | Updates on Written Description and Enablement 7 years after Maatita - Sonia Okolie, Banner Witcoff, Washington, DC |
| 2:05 to 2:40 | Japan’s Related Design System - Tomohiro Namamura, Konishi and Nakamura, Nagoya, Japan |
| 2:40to 2:55 | Break |
| 3:00 to 3:35 | Changes to EU Design Registration and Recent Cases - Paul de Andres Gomez, Berggren Legal, Berggren Spain |
| 3:35 to 4:10 | Updates on the Design Law Treaty, including timelines for implementation and possible changes to international practice- Chris Carani, McAndrews, Held & Malloy, Chicago, IL |
| 4:10 to 5:00 | Panel Discussion: Claiming Strategies for Multiple Countries |
Registration Rates:
AIPLA Member: $145
AIPLA Student: $25
Government/AIPLA Academic: $95
Non-Member: $395
Save $50 off these prices by registering for the Annual Meeting at the same time!
2025 Annual Meeting Registration & Cancellation Policies Apply
Speakers
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Amankwatia, Scott
The Marbury Law Group | Associate
Scott B. Amankwatia is an associate attorney at The Marbury Law Group, where his practice focuses on intellectual property litigation, patent preparation and prosecution, and design rights. He has experience across a range of technologies, including mechanical, software, and medical devices. Scott serves as the Pro Bono Subcommittee Chair of AIPLA’s Patent Pro Bono Committee and is a member of AIPLA’s Design Rights Committee. He earned his J.D. and Intellectual Property Law Certificate from the University of New Hampshire Franklin Pierce School of Law, and holds a B.E. in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Delaware, where he concentrated in biomechanics. -
Carani, Christopher V.
McAndrews, Held & Malloy | Shareholder
Christopher V. Carani is a Shareholder at McAndrews and has been at the firm since 1995. He practices in all areas of intellectual property law with a particular emphasis on design law, which regards the protection and enforcement of rights in the appearance of consumer products. Chris has extensive experience litigating design patent cases, including representations before U.S. district courts, the Federal Circuit, the U.S. Supreme Court, and the International Trade Commission. In each year since 2019, Chris has been named to the IAM Strategy 300: The World’s Leading IP Strategists list, with IAM magazine noting that he is “one of the world’s leading design patent strategists,” one of the U.S.’s “pre-eminent design law experts,” and “widely regarded as one of the country’s premier design patent lawyers.” In 2023, in Columbia Sportswear v. Seirus, Chris successfully argued a case of first impression before the Federal Circuit Court of Appeals, creating new law on the issue of the proper scope of comparison prior art used in the design patent infringement analysis. -
Davis, Theodore
Kilpatrick Townsend & Stockton, LLP | Partner
Ted Davis is a partner in the Atlanta office of Kilpatrick Townsend & Stockton LLP, where he has practiced trademark, copyright, false advertising, and unfair competition law since 1990. He is a past member of the American Intellectual Property Law Association’s Board of Directors and currently serves as an editor of the A.I.P.L.A. Quarterly Law Journal. He also has served on the American Bar Association’s Board of Governors and the International Trademark Association’s Executive Committee. He frequently serves as an expert witness in trademark-related matters and is an adjunct professor at the Emory University School of Law. His articles on intellectual property subjects have appeared in such general-purpose journals as the Minnesota Law Review, the Ohio State Law Journal, the Wake Forest Law Review, the University of Illinois Law Review, the Washington & Lee Law Review, the Florida Law Review, and the Akron Law Review, as well as in specialized publications like the Trademark Reporter, the Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law, the Journal of Intellectual Property Law, and the Cardozo Arts & Entertainment Law Journal. -
de Andrés Gómez, Paula
Berggren | Partner
Paula is a Partner at Berggren and leads the firm's office in Alicante, Spain. She has over 23 years of experience in the IP field with a primary focus on design rights and for the past 15 years she has offered strategic counsel to both national and international clients and has managed extensive design portfolios. -
Nakamura, Tomohiro (Tom)
Konishi & Nakamura | Managing Partner
Managing Partner, Patent Attorney, Konishi & Nakamura. Field in Practices: Clearance, prosecutions, litigations at the Tribunal & IP High Court, proceeding with recordation of IP rights and enforcement at Japan Customs, mainly for trademarks, designs, unfair competition, copyrights and domain names. -
Okolie, Sonia
Banner & Witcoff | Attorney
Sonia Okolie is an attorney at Banner & Witcoff, where she primarily handles design patent, trademark, and copyright prosecution and counseling for several Fortune 500 clients. As a class B shareholder, she leverages her ten years of experience at Banner, where she originally began working as a design patent paralegal. Sonia attended college at Georgetown University, law school at The George Washington University, and currently works at Banner’s Washington, DC office. -
Ritscher, Michael
MLL Legal AG | Founding Member
Michael Ritscher studied at the University of Zurich and received his PhD, then passed the bar exam, completed an LL.M. at Georgetown University and, after research stays at Stanford University and the Max Planck Institute for Innovation and Competition in Munich, founded the intellectual property team of the Swiss law firm MLL Legal AG, which he has headed ever since. As a former lecturer at the ETH Zurich and at the University of Lucerne and as acting president of the INGRES Swiss Institute for the Protection of Intellectual Property, Michael Ritscher has, in addition to his work as an attorney and arbitrator in national and international disputes and as special judge at the Zurich Court of Commerce, also dealt scientifically with trademark law and all other areas of intellectual property law.
News
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AIPLA Comments on CNIPA Draft Measures for Prioritized Patent Examination
April 1, 2026
Arlington, VA. March 30, 2026 – The American Intellectual Property Law Association (AIPLA) submitted comments to the China National Intellectual Property Administration (CNIPA) regarding the Draft Measures for the Administration of Prioritized Examination of Patents. -
AIPLA Files Amicus Brief in Hikma Pharmaceuticals USA Inc. v. Amarin Pharma, Inc
March 31, 2026
Arlington, VA. March 27, 2026 – The American Intellectual Property Law Association (AIPLA) filed an amicus curiae brief with the Supreme Court in Hikma Pharmaceuticals USA Inc. v. Amarin Pharma, Inc., No. 24-889. AIPLA urges the Court to affirm the Federal Circuit’s application of the established Iqbal/Twombly pleading standard and inducement law in reviewing Hikma’s motion to dismiss Amarin’s claim that Hikma’s conduct, in combination with its “skinny label,” induced infringement of Amarin’s patented treatment methods. -
Supreme Court Issues Unanimous Decision in Cox Communications, Inc. v. Sony Music Entertainment
March 25, 2026
On March 25, 2026, the Supreme Court issued a unanimous decision in Cox Communications, Inc. v. Sony Music Entertainment. The majority opinion limits contributory liability to situations where a party intended that its service be used for infringement, either by affirmatively inducing infringement or by selling a service tailored to infringement. A concurring opinion by Justice Sotomayor argues that the material contribution test should be retained, and that other forms of secondary liability can be found, which is consistent with the position asserted by AIPLA in its amicus brief filed on September 5, 2025. To read the opinion of the Court, please click here. -
AIPLA Comments on the Draft Trademark Law of the People’s Republic of China
March 23, 2026
Arlington, VA. February 9, 2026 – The American Intellectual Property Law Association (AIPLA) submitted comments to the Legislative Affairs Commission of the Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress regarding the latest Draft Trademark Law of the People’s Republic of China. AIPLA recognized the NPC’s efforts to streamline trademark procedures, strengthen protection, and address abusive and bad-faith filing practices. -
AIPLA Files Amicus Brief in USAA v. PNC Bank
March 3, 2026
Arlington, VA. March 2, 2026 – The American Intellectual Property Law Association (AIPLA) filed an amicus brief with the Supreme Court in USAA v. PNC Bank, N.A., No. 25-853, in support of USAA’s petition for certiorari, urging the Court to provide much-needed guidance to address the unpredictable and overly broad application of the judicial exceptions to patent-eligible subject matter under 35 U.S.C. § 101, particularly the “abstract idea” exception.
