Fotini Kardiopoulis

Fotini Kardiopoulis, partner and co-founder of Dr Helen G Papaconstantinou and Partners, heads the firm’s anti-counterfeiting and anti-piracy department. She holds a law degree from the University of Athens with first-class honours and an LLM from the London School of Economics and Political Science. She joined the Athens Bar in 1985 and has been admitted to practise before the Greek Supreme Court and the Council of State.

Since 1998 Ms Kardiopoulis has been handling a broad range of IP matters, with an emphasis on trademarks, plant breeders’ rights, contract drafting and reviewing, and alternative dispute resolution. She has extensive experience in IP litigation, devising and implementing anti-counterfeiting programmes, filing and administering customs actions, monitoring and enforcing IP rights online and advising on domain name disputes, and consulting on licence and franchise agreements and copyright issues. In addition, she has conducted numerous significant seizures/raids, including preparatory investigations concerning various sectors, such as apparel, electric/electronic goods, toys, watchmaking and tobacco/cigarettes, often involving civil and criminal action in addition to customs procedures.

She is an active member of various associations, including the International Community of Breeders of Asexually Reproduced Horticultural Plant Varieties (CIOPORA), INTA and MARQUES. She is one of the very few attorneys specialising in plant varieties in Greece and the only Greek lawyer member of CIOPORA.

She has been ranked as a Recommended Individual in the WTR 1000 2020 rankings, as well as a Leading Individual and Recommended Lawyer in the Legal 500 EMEA 2020 IP rankings, and has been awarded the 2020 Certificate of Excellence on Anti-Counterfeiting (Greece) by Advisory Excellence.

Ms Kardiopoulis frequently authors articles in her fields of expertise. Recent contributions include:

• ‘‘Greece (finally!) introduces its new Trademark Law implementing the EU Directive”, in Greek Law Digest’s Viewletter, Nomiki Bibliothiki, July 2020;
• WTR Yearbook 2020/2021: A global guide for practitioners, a supplement to World Trademark Review, April 2020 (co-author);
• “IP Country Comparative Guide: Greece”, The Legal 500, 2020; and
• WIPR Annual 2020 – GREECE – Business Brief.