Welqin was originally founded by Marc Levieils and Yannick Biron.

Marc and Yannick first met more than 10 years ago and have enjoyed working together ever since.

At the time, Marc was confronted with critical operational challenges, having to deal with more and more client-specific requirements and a growing foreign agent network. Interacting with all stakeholders was becoming an overwhelming task for his firm. Marc came up with the idea of creating a group of IP professionals to discuss how to address the challenge.

At the same time, Yannick was heading patent operations at Safran (one of France’s top patent filer) and had similar issues with the various IP firms which represented the group. All Safran firms had different processes and communication channels to update the IP team about prosecution milestones or the status of its IP portfolio. Managing different inbound communication flows was a real challenge. This prompted Yannick to join Marc in his endeavour to tackle these challenges.

Since then, a growing number of IP professionals, from private practice to industry professionals, service providers, IPMS vendors and more recently the French Patent and Trademark Office (INPI), have taken an interest in the idea of developing a more efficient standard to exchange IP data. After several years of exchanges, AFNOR standard NF X50-276 was published in 2018, providing a framework to structure IP-related communications in an understandable and actionable format.

Welqin is centered around this standard and operates under its framework. Welqin’s vision is to transform the industry, allowing IP professionals around the world to finally operate efficiently, regardless of their IP management system, practice, workflow or size.