Tjeerd Overdijk studied Law at Leiden University. He is an all-rounder in the field of intellectual property for more than 30 years, with a special interest in matters balancing on the edge of intellectual property and information technology, such as the enforcement of rights on software, trade mark and copyrights on the Internet, database rights, software and business method patents and trade mark and domain name disputes. He is a WIPO panelist for domain name disputes in .nl.
Next to that he is also one of the very few specialists in plant variety rights. He was involved in the first court case in the world on the concept of essentially derived varieties (EDVs) and he has gained considerable experience on this subject.
Tjeerd has longstanding and broad experience with litigation before a variety of administrative and judicial bodies, both in the Netherlands and in Europe, including the Board of Appeal of the Community Plant Variety Office in Angers, France, the EUIPO, and the highest EU courts in Luxemburg (General Court and Court of Justice). He has also considerable experience with arbitration proceedings.
In addition Tjeerd regularly teaches in post-graduate programmes on his fields of expertise. He is a co-author of the loose-leaf intellectual property textbook ‘Intellectueel Eigendom’ (chapter on copyright) and of a monograph on Intellectual Property & ICT (chapter on patent law).
Tjeerd is an active member of various professional associations, including the International Trademarks Association, MARQUES and CIOPORA.
Tjeerd has registered the following principal (and secondary) legal practice areas in the Netherlands Bar’s register of legal practice areas (rechtsgebiedenregister): Civil Procedural law (Arbitration, Seizure and foreclosure law ,Litigation) Intellectual Property (Burgerlijk Procesrecht (Arbitrage, Beslag- en executierecht, Litigation and Intellectueel Eigendomsrecht). Based on this registration, Tjeerd is required to obtain ten training credits per calendar year in each registered principal legal practice area in accordance with the standards set by the Netherlands Bar.
