Dr. Heinu Koitel 1992-2010 European Patent Attorney founder and chairman

Heinu Koitel, a professor of law and a patent attorney (1937-2010). 

Heinu Koitel dedicated his professional career to the issues regarding the protection of intellectual and industrial property.

H. Koitel was the first legal professional in Estonia to be granted a degree of a Candidate of Law in the field of the legal protection of industrial property (1970). 

2007, the President of the Estonian Republic honored him with the Order of the White Star (IV) for his input in restoring and advancing the Estonian patent system in the 1990-ies.

H. Koitel has published over 100 scientific publications, including books and collections and made numerous presentations in international scientific conferences.

For the past decades Heinu Koitel was professionally involved in the following fields:  
Estonian patent attorney (No. 004) in the field of inventions, trademarks and industrial designs since 1992;
European patent attorney in the field of inventions since 2002 and in the field of trademarks and industrial designs since 2004;
Member of the Association of the Estonian Patent Attorneys (chairman of the association between 2004-2007), the Estonian Lawyers’ Association and international organizations AIPPI and INTA;
a professor at the Tallinn University of Technology at Law School lecturing the following disciplines: legal protection of intellectual property, international public and private law, Roman law.

Areas of practice
Inventions, trademarks, industrial designs, geographical indications, copyright protection, fighting counterfeiting and piracy.

Education - higher
University of Tartu – lawyer; he defended as a first person in Estonia a dissertation in the field of legal protection of intellectual (industrial) property at the University of Tartu;
During the 1990’s he has upgraded his knowledges in the field of intellectual property at the Max Planck Institute for Intellectual Property in Munich, Stockholm School of Economics and University of Stockholm and also participated in training programmes at the European Patent Office (EPO).

Previous occupations
After graduating from the Tartu university he worked for 7 years as an legal adviser, engineer and a head of the patent department at the electro-technical factory "Estoplast" where he registered among other things the first 9 industrial designs of the former Soviet Union (including the popular Estonian souvenir-lantern called Old Thomas);
1967-1992 he worked as a senior research fellow and head of the department of law at the Institutes of Economics and Philosophy, Sociology and Law with the Estonian Academy of Sciences where he further studied intellectual property law;
1971 he organized an affiliate of the Moscow Patent Institute in Tallinn which operated until 1985. Several hundred graduates of this Institute received a second diploma of higher education in the field of patenting. Many of today’s Estonian patent attorneys and employees of the Patent Office have acquired their education in the field of industrial property in this named Institute;
1992 Heinu Koitel established the KOITEL Patent & Trademark Agency being the chairman of the board until 2010.

Languages
Estonian, Russian, English, Finnish.