Aalt teaches Novelty, Invalidity and Opposition searching
Aalt is co-founder and teacher at the GO-Institute for the training course for Patent Information Specialists (PIS). After being the driving force behind the founding of a European Confederacy for Patent Information Users in March 2008 he has been elected as first President of the organization called CEPIUG (Confederation of the EU-user groups). Aalt van de Kuilen is also a member of the IPI-Award selection board, for the selection of the prestigious yearly assigned IPI Award. He is also on the board of Counselors for the IPIConfex and a member of the Advisory Board of Dutch “Octrooigilde”, advising the Dutch Patent Office for promoting IP-awareness.
Aalt van de Kuilen joined Solvay on 1st April 1980 as a chemist at the age of 23. In 1993 he moved to the Patent Department of Solvay Pharmaceuticals and received training as a Patent Information Specialist. He was leading the Global Patent Information team, divided over three sites in Hannover (DE), Dijon (FR) and Weesp (NL) with 6 patent searchers. In February 2010 Solvay Pharmaceuticals has been acquired by Abbott and the Weesp site is renamed to Abbott Healthcare Products B.V.
During the period at Solvay he became a member of WON (Dutch Patent Information User Group) and soon afterwards a Board Member of WON. He has represented WON in several external projects, like the PLUTO project on Machine Translation of Patents (funded by the EC), representing the Patent Information Community. He is a member of SACEPO (Standing Advisory Committee of the European Patent Office, by invitation only).
