On the 7th of July Rafał Witek participated in a conference held by the Visegrad Patent Institute (VPI). 

The purpose of this event was to celebrate the 5th anniversary of the start of the operations of the VPI. The main subject was the PCT system — possibilities and challenges related to it. 

The organizing committee succeeded in gathering in a virtual space a number of interesting guests who presented their diverse perspective and shared their experience of filing international patent applications. Among the invited experts were scientists, patent attorneys, as well as representatives of intellectual property offices. The significance of the conference was underscored by the opening speech of Daren Tang, Director General of the WIPO; the high-level officials from ministries of the respective V4 states were also present. 

Rafał Witek was one of the panelists at the roundtable dedicated to patent strategies used in the Visegrad Group. The moderator was T. Debled, the Director of International Section at CEIPI; the floor was given also to experienced patent attorneys from Czech Republic, Slovakia, and Hungary. During the discussion the speakers addressed the question of decisions that patent attorneys have to make at various stages of the PCT procedure in order to achieve the most desired outcomes for their clients. They addressed, i.a., factors influencing the choice of International Searching/Preliminary Examining Authorities (the EPO or the VPI), as well as whether they would advise their clients to file a request for the supplementary international search.