International Trademark Association CEO Etienne Sanz De Acedo traded his usual upbeat remarks at the opening of the association’s Annual Meeting for ones more appropriate for the current state of the world on Sunday, May 3, 2026, at the Excel London.

“2025 was the year in which fragmentation emerged,” Sanz De Acedo said at the event’s opening ceremonies. “The world stopped working together. Fragmentation took hold. It was a year of division and distrust.”

Sanz De Acedo went on to note that the IP ecosystem, and the world generally, is using 2026 to learn how to navigate that fragmentation.

“We live in times of weaponized interdependence, of strategic coercion, times in which geopolitics are hitting the real economy and the families. So how did we get there? Well, sadly, the war continues in Ukraine. On April 2, 2025, [Donald Trump’s] ‘Liberation Day’ completely changed the rules of the game when it comes to global trade. And as a consequence of that, traditional alliances have been questioned, challenged, damaged, and what we've seen today, all around the world, are interventions or threats of interventions that are becoming increasingly common,” he said.

He continued with the war in Iran and the closure of the Strait of Hormuz, which has caused an energy crisis and an inflationary economy that is affecting oil, gas, diesel, and also fertilizers, which means that millions of people can expect hunger or famine in coming months and years.

“All in all, 2026 is becoming transactional, militarized and economically coercive,” he said.

The World Economic Forum said in January 2026 that it had identified five top risks, which Sanz De Acedo highlighted: geoeconomic confrontation, state-based armed conflicts, extreme weather events, societal polarization and an increasing use of misinformation and disinformation.

“Perhaps what is even more important is that all those risks are interconnected, and there is one common word, which is inequality,” he said. Sanz De Acedo said that what has truly changed in 2026 is not the number of crises, but the operating logic behind such crises: the world is operating with weaker assumptions that trading security can be kept separate, a significant breakdown in international relations and that the rules-based order is no longer assumed.

“In fact, it’s openly being reimagined. And then when it comes to the economic into the economy, we see rising costs, slowing global economic growth, inflationary pressures and volatility that is becoming more persistent, and all that means higher prices on essentials that are truly eroding consumer trust.”

It was at this point that Sanz De Acedo began to connect today’s gloomy geopolitics to brand owners.

“[There are] three elements that we should take into account. Number one, there is a very significant surge in nationalism and insularity,” he said noting a recent survey showing that 70 percent of respondents prefer companies from their own country. “Second, the income divide has more than doubled since 2012 and, last but not least, only 32% of respondents to the Edelman Trust Barometer believe that the next generation will be better off.”

What does that mean in terms of consumer behaviour? “Consumers are still cautious, but perhaps the nature of the caution has changed. Consumers are not retreating from consumption, but they’re becoming more calculated in how and how much they’re spending. Consumers are not just looking for low prices, they're looking for fair prices, for clear explanations and for no hidden deterioration in the quality of what they’re buying,” he said.

Sanz De Acedo noted that, for the IP community, there is some good news: filings are going up, whether trademarks or patents, a trend he attributed in part to AI-native patent and trademark creation; in 2025 alone, there were 12,400 generative AI patents filed globally.

“AI is no longer seen as a niche legal concept. It’s part of the public interest, of the public debate and, more importantly, IP is increasingly judged not only by whether it’s legally correct, but whether it’s socially legitimate. Perhaps this is something we don’t really want to hear, but that’s the truth: IP is more respected than loved.”

Sanz De Acedo said that when it comes to the brand, IP strategy must move from episodic to continuous. “IP portfolios cannot be managed anymore on a kind of annual basis or on filing-driven cycles because AI is getting much bigger second data provenance and training rights are becoming asset level risks. What I mean by that is that AI models rely on data sets whose ownership scope and permissions are now being legally contested, but even more so, because today, counterfeiting, impersonation, deep fakes are directly diverting demand.”

The opening ceremonies began on an upbeat note with co-chairs Tanya Fickenscher and Lara Kayode working to bridge the gap between new attendees and those who have been attending INTA’s Annual Meeting for years.

“[New attendees] bring new perspectives, new questions and new energy, said Fichenscher, vice president and deputy general counsel of Major League Baseball in New York. “You know, something I love to see at these INTA meetings is how we bring together experience and fresh perspective, whether it’s a newer practitioner learning something in an education session that she can immediately put into practice, or that more senior practitioner learning at a committee meeting from someone earlier in their career about a new technology or online platform. That balance between experience and new perspective is what keeps our community dynamic.”

Kayode, founder and managing partner of O.Kayode & Co. in Lagos, recalled attending her first INTA Annual Meeting with her father, who was also an IP lawyer. “I walked into my first session feeling excited – if I’m to be honest, overwhelmed, but definitely excited. What struck me wasn’t just the substance of discussion, but how willing people were to share their experiences. Someone I had never met before took the time to explain not just what they did, but why it’s my turn. And that conversation stayed with me long after the meeting ended.”

“That dynamic between experience and innovation isn't something to manage carefully,” said Kayode. “It’s something to celebrate, because the future of IP doesn't belong to one generation alone. It's built through mentorship, curiosity and the willingness to learn from one another.”

During the opening ceremonies, Sanz De Acedo also announced that INTA’s 149th Annual Meeting in 2027 will take place in San Diego, which hosted the event most recently in 2025.