Benoît Gilligmann

Benoît GILLIGMANN grew up in Strasbourg and completed his engineering studies first at the National Telecommunications Institute (INT) in Paris, and then at the Eurecom Institute in Sophia Antipolis (France), where he studied with students from the "Communication Systems" section of the EPF Lausanne. There he specialized in the field of high-speed networks. After his engineering studies in 1999, he did a Master's degree in Strategy & Corporate finance at HEC in Paris and then joined Swisscom Innovations, the R&D department of Swisscom R&D in Bern, at the end of 2000, where he first focused on research projects and lab tests related to quality of service (QoS) especially for the support of VoIP services. Benoît was involved in the introduction of nomadic access services such as "WLAN"¨ for Swisscom Mobile in field test projects and QoS measurements, and joined the so-called "CTO Office" in 2003, where he was responsible for writing strategic reports on the relevance of new emerging technologies in terms of economic impact for telecom operators (main topics: High Speed Wireless Access Networks & Triple Play, i.e. convergence between the Fixed Network, the Internet Access Network, and the TV Broadcast Network). He has also been regularly involved as a technical advisor in business development projects, and in particular on projects mandated by Headquarters.

He is named as inventor on several patent applications, and has long been interested in intellectual property. Between 2004 and 2006, he was in charge of patent management at Swisscom Innovations before moving to a private law firm as a patent attorney. Starting in 2008, he worked at Swatch Group, where he has involved both in the field of mechanical watchmaking (including major complications) and in the field of electronics, in particular for timekeeping and other related IT aspects.

Employed at BOVARD since 2015, Benoît has continued to focus on watch making projects, and also specialized in the Medtech & Mechanics industry. Since 2019, he has been named Innosuisse Coach, and since then he takes care of numerous startups. He is also a coach within the Mass Challenge program.

In 2009, Benoît completed the CEIPI and two years later also the qualification exams to become a European Patent Attorney. He was among the first qualified Swiss Patent Attorneys, also completing the French Patent Attorney qualification exams one year after this title. Benoît is a member of the EQE examination board for examination part D (ECIII "legal part").

In 2016, he completed the complementary CEIPI training to be admitted as a patent attorney before the Unified Patent Court. Since 2018, he is also responsible as an examiner for the elaboration of the CH patent attorney exam, and since 2019 he is allowed to act as a lecturer at the Bern University of Applied Sciences (BFH) in the field of IP.

Benoît is a former passionate tennis player (N3 60 - NLA between 2001 & 2003 with Sporting Bern) and is generally interested in sports [200 FIS ski points (1995), basketball ball junior regional champion (1992), cycling]. Now he plays golf after a serious knee injury (Hcp 14). He also studied for 10 years at the Strasbourg Conservatory and is still interested in classical music.