IP Connect

Vikrant Rana speaks at FICPI’s 16th Open Forum about the relevance of ISO-27001 certification for a Law Firm

Vikrant Rana, Managing Partner of S.S. Rana & Co. recently spoke at the 16th Open Forum organized by Fédération Internationale des Conseils en Propriété Intellectuelle (hereinafter referred to as FICPI) at St. Petersburg, Russia. FICPI is a non-political, international, professional body of intellectual property professionals, i.e., patent trademark attorneys, in private practice.

The 16th Open Forum programme began on Wednesday, October, 5, 2016, with the welcome reception at the New Stage of the Alexandrinsky Theatre, where Forum delegates and guests had the unique opportunity to enjoy a ballet performance and a cocktail reception. The Forum continued with its business meetings on Thursday and Friday. A plenary session was followed by the usual “three streams” format, intermingled with a break out workshop dealing with a specialized patent topic.

Vikrant spoke on the session titled, “Quality Control – Using Quality Assurance Methods to bring your Firm to the Next Level”. At S.S. Rana & Co., having embraced the technological advancements and changes in legal practices over the years, Vikrant has spearheaded the Firm's ISO 27001 certification project, which culminated in the Firm being certified 27001 certification by DNV-GL in 2015 and thus becoming one of the few Indian Law Firms to do so.

His talk focused on what an IP firm can reasonably expect if it introduces quality assurance methods or starts to document its internal processes according to ISO 27001. He initially introduced the need and the theory behind quality assurance methods and, from firsthand experience based on his own Firm's journey of obtaining the ISO certification, gave examples how these methods may be implemented to make the internal work-flow more transparent, less error-prone, faster and less costly.