The HTB Summer Camp 2024, an on-site meeting held in Munich, successfully reunited the HTB Committee members, supporters, and collaboration partners. This event marked the second in-person meeting of its kind organized by the HTB Committee.

The summer camp took place on 16-17 August 2024 and was hosted by Bardehle Pagenberg. It received the endorsement of the LESI President Sonja London and organizational support from Phyllis Graf, Marius Fischer, Patrick Heckeler, and Tilman Müller-Stoy from Bardehle Pagenberg.

The LESI-EPO HTB initiative has engaged in joint activities to bring the topic of IP strategy closer to business decision makers and to train IP managers in value creation-focused IP management for high-growth technology businesses since the signature of the first MoU with the European Patent Office in 2019. Over the years, the initiative has expanded to include several regular events such as HTB conferences and HTB forums, one-on-one training sessions known as HTB clinics, eLearning through HTB learning, and a wide range of publications on various IP and business-related topics.

Additionally, it supports the training conference on succeeding at technology commercialization and negotiation by leveraging synergies with the LESI Education committee.

The HTB committee has been creating high-quality training formats and materials, as well as developing strategies to reach out to business decision makers, including CEOs, CTOs, and founders. This endeavour has led to the establishment of the HTB community on LinkedIn, which has attracted over 3,200 followers and 20 supporting organizations committed to promoting the initiative through social media and other communication channels.

As a result, the HTB community has become a crucial element of the outreach strategy for the LESI-EPO HTB initiative, serving as a platform for businesses, IP professionals, investors and others in the innovation ecosystem to exchange ideas and perspectives.

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Celebration of successes, continuation of activities and kicking off new projects for coming years were main topics of this year’s HTB summer camp. Sonja London and Thomas Bereuter gave an update to the participants on the discussed extension of the next MoU and the progress of its formalization. The MoU envisages continuing cooperation, including the yearly HTB forums and the HTB community on LinkedIn.

Three sessions followed:

LINKEDIN WORKSHOP:

Nadja Viharev, Chair of the Dissemination team at the HTB Task Force, orchestrated a live LinkedIn post on the HTB community page to which all participants contributed based on their assigned tasks. This collective approach resulted in about 3,000 impressions and 15 new followers for the HTB community.

PUBLICATIONS UPDATE:

Adéla Dvořáková, Vice-chair of the LESI HTB Committee and Chair of the Content team at the HTB Task Force gave an update on publication projects, and moderated a discussion about increasing visibility of HTB publications.

HTB FORUMS PLANNING:

Cemresu Yucebalkan from the European IP Helpdesk, who is the Chair of the HTB  forums team, led a planning session for the four online HTB forums that will take place next year:

• Digital Innovations

• Growth Financing

• Open Innovation

• IP Strategy and Management

The event contributed to the planning of the activities for upcoming years, but it also strengthened the collaboration between the LESI-HTB Task Force and its supporters, securing their continuing support and participation in future activities.

If you would like to become part of the initiative and work on the HTB Committee, Thomas Bereuter, Audrey Yap, Juergen Graner and Adéla Dvořáková invite you to follow the HTB community on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/htbcommunity

Author: Adéla Dvořáková (Vice-Chair of the LESI HTB committee, member of the LESI-EPO HTB task force)