INTA 2025 Gathered Professionals from Around the World in San Diego

Now that my heart rate has finally slowed down a bit from all the networking and the jetlag from the long travel is slowly fading away, it’s a good time to wrap up the key takeaways from the INTA (International Trademark Association) 2025 annual conference, hosted this year in San Diego. 

The roots of the annual trademark professionals’ meeting date back all the way to the 19^th century so it’s safe to say it has cemented its status as the yearly place to be for anybody working in the trademark sector. Naturally, the infamous covid-years took a toll on this event, as well, but at least now the glory days are back since this year, the conference gathered around 10 000 participants from all around the world. Just from this number, it should be clear that we are not talking about any small closed-circle happening, either, but rather about a unique once-in-a-year chance to meet colleagues from all around the world in one place. As trademarking practices are generally growing more and more international each year, such a chance shouldn’t be taken for granted.  

“Well, what are the benefits for travelling to the other side of the world and is it worth it?”- you might ask. To answer this, I’ve listed a few main takeaways from my perspective:  

Firstly, it has to be said that not all participants are alike, and agendas differ for different companies depending on where their focus of business lies. For some, the majority of work comes from bigger national clients who operate quite locally, so the agenda for a meeting like this might be to meet with direct representatives of the clients whereas for more internationally focused companies the agenda often revolves more around meeting foreign representatives from different IPR-agencies, making new connections or strengthening the existing ones.  

The case for Boco is closer to the latter one and our main focus, for example, has been on networking – ensuring that we truly know the people we work with and that we have the necessary network around the world to meet our clients’ diverse needs. Especially in modern day, it can be difficult to distinguish “fakes” from genuine professionals as especially with the help of modern AI-tools, anybody can quite easily craft believable websites and appear quite differently from reality. This also demonstrates well how strong brands are needed by everyone.  

Secondly, conferences such as this are also great opportunities to spot new business opportunities. Even though quite many IPR-related companies offer somewhat similar services, there are those who are constantly innovating when it comes to for example packaging services and coming up with new innovative ways of helping clients. The yearly conference is thus also a great opportunity to keep track of useful tools and services that are available worldwide.  

All in all, the INTA 2025 annual meeting was once again filled with meaningful encounters, new insights, and a renewed sense of global community within the trademark field. While the days were often long and filled with thousands of walked steps, the value of these in-person moments—whether scheduled meetings or spontaneous encounters —can’t be overstated. The conference served as a great reminder of how much the human side of this profession still matters, even in a world that keeps digitalizing faster and faster every day.  

Until next year!