On the heels of successful meetings in Hyderabad and Seoul, the International Association for the Protection of Intellectual Property (AIPPI) is preparing to welcome delegates from Asia and elsewhere to its 2013 Forum and Executive Council Meeting in Helsinki, Finland, September 5-11.

The Hyderabad and Seoul meetings, held in 2011 and 2012, respectively, were the organization’s first to be held in Asia.

Cinzia Petruzzello, AIPPI’s chief operating officer and meeting planner, tells Asia IP that registration for the Helsinki meeting has already exceeded expectations for attendance. “We have registered more than 850 people more than a month prior to the meeting,” she says. “We expected 750 for the whole meeting. We might be close to 1,000 by September.”

More than 210 of the registered attendees are from Asian countries, including about 50 from Japan and nearly 60 from China, Petruzzello says. Markku Simmelvuo, managing director and a European Patent Attorney at Papula-Nevinpa in Helsinki, says that the meeting will offer its usual opportunities for networking and establishing new relationships, as well as a program covering everything from patents to trademarks to licensing.

“Finland is also very easy to reach from Asia,” Simmelvuo says. “Tokyo, Seoul, Beijing, Shanghai, Hong Kong, Singapore and Bangkok all have nonstop flights to Helsinki. It’s one of the easiest places in Europe to reach from Asia.”

Plus, Simmelvuo says, Finland is a great city to visit, with easy connections to the rest of Europe for trips to visit clients elsewhere on the continent. “Helsinki is the smallest big city in the world,” he says. “It’s an easy to city get around, and a very convenient to attend a meeting like this. Everything is so close, you can walk everywhere. There are parks all over the city.”