Expertise

Maurits lectures and advises on cases in his field, with a particular technical emphasis on software and electronics.

He litigates ground-breaking patent and licensing cases for major international companies in the field of software, telecommunications, digital security and convergent media solutions.

Maurits coordinates pan-European strategies for major patent holders, helping to assert their patents against competitors with simultaneous patent actions in various jurisdictions. His practice also includes negotiation of international software and patent licensing agreements, as well as litigation relating to the breach of such contracts and the misappropriation of trade secrets.

Projects

Maurits is an active speaker on IP strategy, R&D best practices and 3D Printing, while also coaching start-ups and teaching IP law and strategy as guest lecturer at the University of Leiden and VU University. At the invitation of the Chinese State Administration of Foreign Experts Affairs, Maurits spoke at the 2014 World Congress on 3D Printing in China. He also serves as an editor on the EPLAW Patent Blog.

Maurits speaks Dutch, English, French and German.

Biography

Maurits Westerik is a senior lecturer on innovation protection. Since 2009, he has been teaching intellectual property, specifically patent law and software protection, to scientists and engineers. His mission is to train his students to understand and use this field of law, which was written for their benefit, enabling them to use this legal toolkit to harvest the fruits of their intellectual labour. 

Outside of his teaching job, he is a programmer, a free and open source software (FOSS) evangelist, as well as a practising attorney-at-law (IP/IT) and partner at the Technology and Energy law firm Coupry in The Hague. Maurits is the IP Counsel in Residence at the Yes!Delft startup incubator.

Education and career

Maurits studied law at the University of Leiden and is a graduate of the international program of the Institute for Political Sciences (SciencePo) in Paris. He started lecturing law in 1998 at Leiden University. Since 2009 Maurits has been teaching IP law in Delft.

Apart from his teaching, he is a programmer in his spare time, usually working on medical 3D imaging software, and he is also practising attorney-at-law (IP/IT) and partner at the Technology and Energy focused law firm Coupry in The Hague (www.coupry.nl). 

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