When IP Goes Backstage: iPNOTE Hosts the First Stand–Up Evening for IP Leaders in Munich

iPNOTE has hosted IP Leaders Backstage, an invite-only community evening that brought together in-house IP professionals for an intimate and unconventional networking experience. The gathering took place on November 25 at the Lucky Punch Comedy Club in Munich and marked the first offline event of the IP Leaders Network by iPNOTE, a community created to foster trusted, meaningful exchange among intellectual property leaders across industries.

IP Leaders Backstage – the first event of its kind for the IP world – was designed to move beyond traditional panels and formal presentations. Instead, it introduced a format where experts shared honest, personal, and often humorous behind-the-scenes stories from their careers. With a TEDx-meets-stand-up feel, the evening encouraged authenticity, vulnerability, and genuine connection between peers who rarely get the chance to speak openly about their work.

The program featured five seasoned IP professionals representing diverse perspectives from across Europe’s IP landscape: Maria Musaev, Manager Intellectual Property & Innovation Global, Maja Miloradovic van Doorn, IP Manager at LTS LOHMANN Therapie-Systeme AG, Christian Schulz, independent German and European patent attorney and former Director Patents at adidas, Dr. Anna Heindler, Senior Intellectual Property Manager in the Department of Strategic Intellectual Property Solutions at Roche, and Alex Levkin, patent attorney and founder of iPNOTE. Each speaker delivered a personal, candid snapshot of challenges, surprising moments, and human stories behind their professional journeys, a format that resonated strongly with everyone who attended the event.

All speakers are members of the IP Leaders Network by iPNOTE – an invite-only community created for in-house IP professionals. The community focuses on practical knowledge sharing rather than formal obligations and brings leaders together through both online and offline sessions to discuss emerging technologies. Regular Deep Dive meetings also give members the opportunity to explore new trends and assess tools that can support their IP management work.

“Our goal was simple: create a space where IP professionals could speak human-to-human, not role-to-role,” says Alex Levkin, CEO and founder of iPNOTE. “IP can be an isolated field, yet the challenges are universal. The Backstage format worked exactly as intended. The speakers opened up in ways that revealed the personalities behind their titles, and the audience left with a genuine connection and a warm sense of shared experience.”