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01 September 2026 Awards | General

Koen Vanhalst has once again been recognised in the IAM Strategy 300

We are pleased to announce that our partner Koen Vanhalst has once again been recognised in the IAM Strategy 300: The World’s Leading IP Strategists 2026.

The IAM Strategy 300 identifies leading professionals who are recognised for their ability to develop and implement strategies that maximise the value of intellectual property.

28 August 2026 General | IP news | Patents

The New EU Regulation on New Genomic Technique (NGT) Plants: What It Means for Patenting Plants in Europe

On June 17, 2026, the European Parliament adopted Regulation (EU) 2026/1388 on plants obtained by New Genomic Techniques (NGTs), which entered into force on July 16, 2026.

Negotiations for this new EU Regulation began after a CJEU decision in 2018, which ruled that plants obtained through targeted mutagenesis (such as the CRISPR-Cas9 gene-editing technique) were captured by the Regulation on genetically modified organisms (GMOs) and all the strict requirements that entails, despite the fact that such NGT plants (cisgenesis and targeted mutagenesis) scientifically differ from traditional GMOs (transgenesis) in that they do not necessarily contain “foreign DNA”.

12 August 2026 General | IP news | Trademarks

AI Act: Brussels Has Not Banned AI - It Has Simply Asked Us to Pay Attention

Anyone who still believes that artificial intelligence operates in a legal vacuum has probably spent the past two years somewhere without Wifi. The European AI Act is now very much with us and, since 2 August 2026, a number of its rules have become directly relevant to businesses that do not build AI systems, train foundation models or employ rooms full of data scientists. They simply use AI. In other words: almost everyone. 

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with reasonable rates. They are very
responsive and have a very high level of
expertise in all areas of intellectual property."
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with reasonable rates."
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Awards

  • Koen Vanhalst has once again been recognised in the IAM Strategy 300
  • Ann De Clercq recognised in Managing IP's Top 250 Women in IP 2026
  • De Clercq & Partners included in the Financial Times' ranking of Europe’s Leading Patent Law Firms 2026.
  • Joost Muylle recognised in the World Trademark Review Global Leaders 2026
  • De Clercq & Partners has once again been recognised in the IAM Patent 1000
  • Women in Business Law EMEA Awards 2026 – Shortlist