Ones to Watch in Dutch patent litigation 2023

JUVE Patent’s Ones to Watch Netherlands 2023

• Jeroen Boelens, Nauta Dutilh (Amsterdam)
• Roeland Grijpink, Hoyng ROKH Monegier (Amsterdam)
• Ruben Laddé, Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer (Amsterdam)

Jeroen Boelens: Patent all-rounder with a busy schedule

Nauta Dutilh’s sole patent partner is setting the firm’s course for the future

Jeroen Boelens

The 39-year-old Jeroen Boelens was in New York City when he got the call that his colleague and long-time Nauta Dutilh partner, Anne Marie Verschuur, was leaving for De Brauw Blackstone Westbroek. After ten years at the firm, and during his time on secondment to the firm’s office in the Big Apple, he had suddenly become its sole patent-specialist partner – despite his still-recent elevation to the partnership, which came in 2022.

But Nauta Dutilh has been in Boelens’ psyche since his time at university in Groningen, where he studied IP law. At this time, his lecturer was Charles Gielen, who also happened to be a partner – now advisor – at the full-service firm. The professor made an impression on a young Boelens, who says he was “lectured in a way that made it impossible not to fall in love with patent law”; in fact, so enthusiastic is Boelens about the subject of IP at an academic level that he has come full circle. As of the beginning of October, Boelens will return to his alma mater to lecture the new cohort of IP law students on all things patent.

Similar to other firms in the Dutch market, Nauta Dutilh’s patent law practice is predominantly driven by life sciences companies. However, Boelens has been involved in a variety of cases since the beginning of his career. Notably, he was part of the team alongside Verschuur acting for solar panel producer Longi Netherlands in a case brought by Hanwha Q-Cells, with Hoyng ROKH Monegier representing the latter. Including a vast number of solar panels under seizure and more than a handful of court hearings in less than six months before courts in Rotterdam and The Hague, he describes the case as “high-octane and very intense”. Another stand-out experience, according to Boelens, was his work for patentee Shionogi over an antiretroviral drug, which began in 2016 and lasted several years.

More recently, he has been heavily involved for Galenicum against Insud Pharma in a case concerning diabetes treatment, and for Heraeus against Zimmer Biomet over bone cement used in prostheses. This is no small feat, considering that the young partner has had to step into a role designed for two. But Boelens welcomes the mixture of expertise his job necessitates: “Making the simple stuff complex is easy –  making the complex stuff easy is where the fun is. Becoming well-versed in a new technology in a limited period of time is an almost addictive feeling”.

When he is not maintaining the Nauta Dutilh patent practice, lecturing in Groningen or being involved on the AIPPI biotechnology committee, Boelens goes running and enjoys travelling – the latter is “an underappreciated advantage of international conferences,” he says. As the firm commences its search for a lateral hire, Boelens remains busy juggling his myriad responsibilities. In the meantime, however, he’s doing a good job of keeping the ship on course.

Read JUVE Patent’s analysis of Nauta Dutilh in the JUVE Patent Netherlands ranking 2023

Roeland Grijpink: Hoyng ROKH’s next FRAND talent

The IP boutique’s senior associate is eyeing up the UPC with ambition

Roeland Grijpink

Finding the sweet spot between law and economics is what drew Roeland Grijpink to instigate a career in IP. Back in 2012, while enjoying a semester abroad in Bologna during his master’s studies, the now-35-year-old stumbled across the website of Hoyng ROKH Monegier. After firing off some emails, the opportunity arose for Grijpink to become a student intern at the boutique firm’s Amsterdam office. Now, eleven years later, he is a senior associate at one of the country’s most respected IP practices.

Amid the variation offered by a career in patent litigation, Grijpink says that the concept of FRAND is what drew him to this particular area of the law. “I find FRAND an interesting intersection of technology, law and economics”, he explains. “Now, since joining Hoyng ROKH Monegier, I’ve been lucky enough to be involved in almost every FRAND-related case that’s gone through the Amsterdam office.”

Recently, these proceedings have involved video coding technology – an aspect of telecommunication coming to the forefront as FRAND case law continues to develop. He was part of a Hoyng ROKH Monegier team which recently obtained a positive outcome for Netflix against DivX, whereby the District Court of Amsterdam declined to align a preliminary judgment with a finding of infringement made by a German court; Grijpink is also active for patent pool Access Advance and its licensors including Philips, IP Bridge and Dolby against Vestel over video coding technology.

Grijpink has Bart van den Broek to thank for this blossoming expertise: prior to joining the boutique, the seasoned litigator suggested that the former write his master’s dissertation on FRAND. The rest, as they say, is history. Now Grijpink and van den Broek frequently work alongside each other in important telecommunication cases.

According to Grijpink, one of his career highlights so far has been the actions between ASML and Nikon, involving semiconductors, thermodynamics – and multiple pending proceedings. The patent litigator, who has also dipped his toe into pharmaceutical litigation, is currently involved in several pending battles for innovative drug companies. He also does, he says, “trademark, design and copyright cases, on quite a regular basis”. But for Grijpink, it would be perfect if the firm’s next big FRAND battle could come via the UPC. After all, as well as Bologna, Grijpink also studied in Rotterdam, Hamburg and Haifa. Now is another opportunity to add plenty more locations to that list.

Read JUVE Patent’s analysis of Hoyng ROKH Monegier in the JUVE Patent Netherlands ranking 2023

Ruben Laddé: From electronical engineering to big pharma

Earning his stripes by coordinating for Moderna vs. BioNTech and Pfizer

Ruben Laddé

Delft, a small picturesque city in the west of the Netherlands, is most famous for being home to painter and Dutch master Johannes Vermeer. It is known for its blue and white pottery, as well as a canal system complex enough to rival Amsterdam’s. But the city is also where Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer’s most senior associate in Amsterdam, Ruben Laddé, studied electrical engineering for several years, before deciding to turn his hand to patent law.

Although beginning his career at Arnold & Siedsma as a patent attorney, Laddé soon realised that his basic law training compelled him towards the litigation side of proceedings. This led him, in 2010, to join the patent team of Simmons & Simmons, where he worked alongside individuals such as partner Bas Berghuis van Woortman and patent lawyer-turned-UPC-judge András Kupecz. Here, as befitting his academic background, Laddé cut his teeth in technical cases such as for Samsung against Apple.

But it was during the latter case, where Freshfields acted on the other side, that he got to know the rival international firm’s patent team under Rutger Kleemans. Laddé then joined the firm in 2015 as a senior associate and became heavily involved in work for Nikon against ASML, and for several of the firm’s multiple life sciences clients. Currently, this includes multiple actions for Novartis, such as against Synthon over heart failure treatment drug Entresto, and in the high-profile litigation against Pharmathen over cancer treatment, Okrodin. Recently, Laddé has also worked as part of the team for AB InBev against Versumi over in-home beer dispensers. He says, “Pharma work is fascinating, but I also love these smaller, technical cases a lot – there are broader boundaries and more flexibility in how I can approach them.”

But one of the biggest challenges of Laddé’s career is, in fact, taking place on 6 October when the Freshfields team takes centre stage for Moderna against BioNTech and Pfizer at the District Court of The Hague. Alongside partner Kleemans, Laddé is working with esteemed international partners such as Germany’s Nina Bayerl and the UK’s Laura Whiting. With the team coordinating the case across the Freshfields offices in Europe, Laddé firmly belongs to an emerging tradition of young Freshfields senior associates or partners who are taking a leading role in high-stakes litigation with a cross-border element. And what could be more high stakes than litigation around mRNA vaccines?

In the meantime, Laddé finds relaxation in cycling, albeit on a racing bike around his new home in the Dutch countryside rather than along Delft’s canals. For someone who only began their patent law adventures aged 30, the past 13 years have been an exercise in understanding changing case law at both the national and international level. Now, Laddé says, the future of litigation looks like the UPC. “Knowing how to act at the UPC should be part of every litigator’s toolbox,” he says. “Over the next ten years, I want to put these skills into action.”

Read JUVE Patent’s analysis of Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer in the JUVE Patent Netherlands ranking 2023