Our people

Yannick is a qualified French and European patent attorney. His background includes more than 10 years of patent portfolio management, IP-related risk mitigation, budgeting, cost, process and change management, having held several key positions within Airbus and Safran groups.

Education & background

Prior to joining Withers & Rogers, Yannick held several IP management positions at Airbus, where he was ultimately responsible for patent portfolio optimisation. Yannick also led in-house patent operations at Safran Aircraft Engines for 5 years, where he managed a patent portfolio of 10,000+ filings, covering 3,000+ inventions. Among his key successes were the management of the transition to an Airbus-wide IP management system and the alignment of Safran’s patent portfolio to its innovation strategy.

Passionate about intellectual property, Yannick has spent the past 5 years developing new IP services, quality management, legal knowledge management and a worldwide attorney network at a leading service provider in the IP field, helping the company triple its headcount from 50 to 150 employees during his tenure.

Yannick is a qualified (Black Belt) Lean Six Sigma expert and is regularly consulted to support Lean IP management deployment across the IP sector. From 2009 to 2014, he was Secretary of the French association of in-house IP counsels (ASPI). He was elected again in early 2021 before moving to private practice at Withers & Rogers. He has been Secretary of the European Patent Institute (epi) Online Communications Committee since 2017 and is the current epi representative at the Standard Advisory Committee to the EPO (SACEPO) e-patent process working group. Yannick is also involved in the association for IP Data Exchange Standards (EDIPI), pushing for more efficient exchanges between IP stakeholders, as well as the International Association for the Protection of Intellectual Property (AIPPI) and the Rhône-Alpes Group for the Protection of Intellectual Property (GRAPI).

Yannick holds a BSc in aerospace engineering from the Florida Institute of Technology and a master’s in innovation and technology management from Toulouse Business School. He has been continuously trained in people and project management within Airbus and Safran. He is a regular speaker at worldwide IP conferences and a former epi-CEIPI tutor. Yannick is also a former teacher in IP law and IP management at Skema Business School in Paris, Toulouse Business School and IAE Toulouse.

On a personal note...

When not at work, Yannick spends most of his time with friends and family. Besides enjoying discovering new destinations worldwide, Yannick has two passions: skiing during winter, sailing the Mediterranean Sea in the summer!