Helmut Sonn
(1939-2025)
On August 14, 2025, our former Senior Partner Helmut Sonn passed away at the age of 86. With his passing, the world of intellectual property has lost not only a leading patent attorney, but a formative spirit who shaped the global IP landscape for decades.
Helmut was a giant of a man — in many ways. His impressive physical stature matched his extraordinary command of every area of intellectual property law. At the same time, he was an outstanding leader in all his positions – whether as head of his firm, as President of FICPI (Fédération Internationale des Conseils en Propriété Industrielle – the global federation of patent attorneys in private practice, where he served as President from 1991 to 1994, and twice as Vice President (1972–1975 and 1988–1991)), and as a long-standing board member of the Austrian Chamber of Patent Attorneys.
As the son of a patent attorney, Helmut lived and loved the world of industrial property protection even before graduating 1966 in physics from the Vienna University of Technology. In 1971, he passed the necessary exams, became a registered patent attorney and actively led the patent law firm SONN, which his father Alexander had shaped in the 1950s and 1960s, into the “new era” ushered in by the European Patent Convention of 1973 (the “EPC”) and the Patent Cooperation Treaty of 1970 (‘PCT’), which fundamentally and permanently changed the patent landscape in Europe and around the world.
Helmut Sonn had an incredible knowledge of the present and past of industrial property rights – and yet he was primarily interested in the future, the new, the challenging. As an active participant in the Diplomatic Conference that led to the signing of the EPC in 1973, Helmut understood the epochal change that the EPC brought about for patent attorneys and was therefore always keen to be at the forefront of developments and to actively shape them for the better.
With foresight, legal brilliance and deep humanity, he played an enormous role in steadily enhancing the international reputation of our firm – not as a boss or international functionary in the traditional sense, but as a person who shaped others through his knowledge, trust and example. For him, leadership always meant: empowering others.
Helmut was also a man who embraced life with joy and style — a true giant in his appreciation of living. He loved the calmness of a slowly smoked pipe, the richness of a good glass of wine, and the pleasures of a finely crafted meal. His intellectual depth, sense of nuance and elegant humour blended seamlessly with his gift for training and leading people and leading them in a warm, goal-oriented and always forward-looking manner.
Helmut found support in his family – and gave it back in return, not only as the son of patent attorney Alexander Sonn, whose large footsteps he easily filled within a very short time, and also significantly expanded during his career. As a husband, father, grandfather and friend, he was present (even when he was not there; Helmut spent a lot of time abroad due to his international work), warm-hearted and engaging.
The IP profession has lost one of its most influential figures in Helmut Sonn. But what he built, inspired and passed on lives on in our IP firm, whose ideas and ideals he played a key role in defining and whose people he shaped and inspired as role model, both professionally and personally.
Rest in peace, Helmut — you were a great man: in stature, in attitude, in thought, in leadership, in heart, and in actions.
