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News

January 1, 2005

Featured: Dr. Hans Goldrian

By Sharon Callahan

DR. HANS GOLDRIAN

Intellectual Property Consultant
Schaefer Schweiger
Munich, Germany

�This year marks my 50th year in the field of intellectual property,� says Dr. Hans Goldrian, an internationally-renown intellectual property expert. Now an advisor to several major European policy-making organizations, Goldrian began his lengthy and distinguished career in August of 1954.

Goldrian was born in 1928 in the former Czechoslovakia, and grew up in Vienna, Austria. He attended the Technical University in Vienna, earning a degree in electrical engineering. After graduation, he joined Siemens, a global electrical and electronics manufacturer, in Austria as a laboratory engineer. He was transferred after a year to Siemens� facility in Germany as a patent engineer. He later earned a doctorate degree in Technical Sciences at the Technical University, Vienna, in 1959.

Beginning in the early 1980s, and until his retirement in 1991, Goldrian served as executive director of Siemens� Patent Department, one of Europe�s largest, with a staff of approximately 60 patent engineers and a total of 200 employees. Under his guidance, the Patent Department prosecuted about 2,000 new German patent applications annually, and numerous corresponding foreign patent applications every year. �I made my career at Siemens,� reflects Goldrian. �Siemens manufactures many types of electrical equipment, everything from power stations, telecommunications, electro-medicine, industrial automation and semiconductor components to household appliances.�

Today, many of Siemens� products are in the area of computer technology. �I founded and developed the patent departments for Siemens in the United States and Sweden, and other locations where Siemens had research facilities,� explains Goldrian. During his career with Siemens,Goldrian traveled the globe, visiting South America, Japan, China, Canada, Australia and multiple visits to the United States.

While working for Siemens, he joined several major European industry trade associations and policy-making organizations, such as the Federation of German Industries, serving as chair of the Intellectual Property Committee for more than a decade. He also represented that Committee in the respective Committee of the European Union of Industry Federations, often interacting with the World Intellectual Property Organization. �During my last 10 years, I was in charge of the patent policy of Siemans, particularly in international relations,� says Goldrian. �The European Patent Convention helped to harmonize the patent laws of many countries, and the Patent Cooperation Treaty (PCT) has enabled a single patent application to effective in most countries of the world,� explains Goldrian.

Goldrian has brought his world of expertise to Pierce Law since the early 1990s. He teaches Intellectual Property and Comparative Patent Law during the annual Intellectual Property Summer Institute or during the fall semester. �I show my students the differences between the patent law in different countries around the world,� Goldrian explains. �There really is no international patent law. For the sake of harmonization, several international agreements were developed. For example, the Patent Cooperation Treaty unifies the initial stages of patent prosecution in the member countries, and the European Convention provides a common grant procedure for nearly all European countries. These are dealt with extensively during the second part of my course.�

�And lastly, I show them what you can do with patents, and how patents are enforced,� says Goldrian. �Notwithstanding successful harmonization efforts in the field of prosecution, the principle of territoriality is still quite effective in the field of enforcing, with various national laws and concepts governing litigation procedures.�

Today, Goldrian is a consultant for the law firm of Schaefer Schweiger in Munich, and he remains a member of the Standing Advisory Committee of the European Patent Office. �In the global trade relations of our time, I consider a knowledge of aspects of the patent scenery outside the domestic range as essential for a patent professional who has to advise the client. Therefore, I enjoy teaching international patent law to students who have the same attitude and want to be more familiar with foreign aspects of intellectual property protection. At Schaefer Schweiger, my work includes the prosecution of applications of U.S. applicants before the European Patent Office and the prosecution of applications of European applicants before the USPTO. This helps me to pass along to my students information originating in the patent practice,� explains Goldrian.

Goldrian and his wife, Deli, reside in Munich, and have a son, Rainer and daughter, Sylvia.

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