Alison Brimelow

Alison Jane Brimelow CBE (born 1949 ) is a British civil servant and former chief executive and Comptroller General of the UK Patent Office, now known as the Intellectual Property Office. She was the fifth President of the European Patent Office, a position she held from 1 July 2007 to 30 June 2010.

Early life and education

Born in Havana, Cuba, she is one of the two daughters of Sir Thomas Brimelow, a British diplomat, who was Permanent Under-Secretary in the British Foreign Office in 1973–75 and Member of the European Parliament in 1977–78, and Jean Cull. She holds a degree from the University of East Anglia. In May 2009, she informed the EPO staff that she would not seek an extension of her contract which ended on 30 June 2010. There were initially four candidates to succeed her, Susanne Ås Sivborg, Benoît Battistelli, Roland Grossenbacher, and Jesper Kongstad. In March 2010, it was then made known that she would be succeeded by Benoît Battistelli on 1 July 2010.

In September 2010, Alison Brimelow took on the role of chairman of the Board of Trustees of Hartlebury Castle Preservation Trust. In June 2011 she became Chairman of the Intellectual Property Institute.

Honours She was appointed Commander of the Order of the British Empire in 2005, "for services to Intellectual Property Law." In 2011, she was awarded the Commander's Cross of the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany (German: Grosses Bundesverdienstkreuz).

She is a member of the Athenaeum Club.