Mr. Ruud Peters, a national of the Netherlands, was appointed in 1999 Chief Executive Officer of Philips Intellectual Property & Standards, responsible for managing the worldwide intellectual property portfolio of Philips and responsible for standardization activities in the field of optical storage (CD/DVD) and digital rights management and copy protection.
In 1977 he started his career at the Intellectual Property & Standards (IP&S) Organization of Philips in Eindhoven, where he received his professional training. In 1981 he became qualified Dutch and European patent attorney. After having taken various positions in the technology and consumer electronics sectors, he was appointed Director of Philips IP&S in 1990, in which function he had worldwide responsibility for the patent and licensing operation in the area of telecommunications, information systems, medical systems and test & measuring systems. He participated in standard bodies, like ISO and ETSI, where he contributed to formulating the currently used intellectual property policies.
He studied physics at the Delft Technical University.
Mr. Peters is also member of the board of directors of Intertrust Corp. in the United States, Vice-President of the Intellectual Property Commission of VNO-NCW (the Dutch Employers Federation) and Member of the Licensing Executives Society-Benelux and the Dutch AIPPA organization.