PROFILE: Peter Ekelund Peter Ekelund is currently partner and naming consultant at Skriptor AB in Stockholm, Sweden. He joined Skriptor in 1985. He has a Master of Arts in Scandinavian languages, linguistics and German but is also a qualified librarian and studied various interdisciplinary subjects like history of ideas. Being a pure humanist he is however extremely proud of his studies in medicine for technicians and scientists. He has been engaged in projects for many pharmaceutical companies and names emanating from these are for example Yasmin, Xalatan, Crestor, Pradaxa, Brilinta, Revestive but Absolut Kurant is also close to his heart. He is a dedicated chess player with three Swedish national team championships to his credit, but will never be top-notch. When retired, he plans to travel around and play veteran chess as the tournaments are normally situated in lovely places like Crete, Porto or in adorable towns in Italy, Spain or France. with “sexy” tough names with a Finnish touch. I tried to convince them that Ratona was a very good name. And they were convinced, until we found out that the name had a meaning in Spanish; “female mouse”. They wanted to sound big too! In fact in Portuguese Ratona means ‘big female rat’, which however did not make it better. Curtain down…. 62 and thereafter will be very good, at least intellectually. I will also try to reshape my body to look like one of a 25 year old sportsman, or at least like Clooney! Once at a PTMG conference in London I went to a Korean restaurant and had a main meal named “28 different small dishes”. The starter was “6 different small dishes”. Altogether it was the best I ever had! Food and wine so getting that young sportsman´s body again will not happen!… What is your weakness? What is your favourite food dish? What is the best age to be? In the small town of Växjö in southern Sweden. The district is called Småland. A lot of wonderful lakes and forests, but also industry; IKEA was founded 60 km from my birthplace. I got bored working as a librarian and made a restart at the university, studying Computer Linguistics. One evening in 1985 my professor called me and asked if I could come to work for Skriptor. He said “You are not the most talented linguist I have met, but you are crazy enough to cope with the others at Skriptor!” What would you have done if you hadn’t become involved in intellectual property? How did you become involved in trade marks? Where were you brought up and educated? What does all your money get spent on? What do you do at weekends? What money? I try to win some at horse-racing. Listening to silence, birdsong or to my wild and loud grandchildren on the porch in our cottage. Or playing serious chess or drinking too much wine, but not at the same time… I’m not much of a handy man. Taking care of practical things like carpentry, electrical jobs, mending instruments and tools is not my cup of tea. I am all fingers and thumbs. My absolute first wish was to be a housekeeper. There was a girl named Irma. I wanted to be like her in every aspect. Difficult, but I love Edward Munch. Complete the sentence: If I have time to myself … I was a librarian and manager of a mobile library. Lots of fun driving the bus! But I think I would have turned up at the university again after some more years - studying and teaching Icelandic and old language history. Which three words would you use to describe yourself? Stubborn, friendly, logical. Terylene trousers. My mother wanted me to wear them with a white shirt and tie when I was five and since then I have had difficulties with all dress codes… Sorry PTMG, I will never learn to dress correctly! What is your favourite drink? Bloody Mary. How do you relax? What do you wish you’d never worn? What did you want to be as a child? What was your worst experience in the world of work? We were working with a complex Finnish company around 1990. They did not like our names very well though we were trying to come up What is your favourite holiday destination? Not doing anything at all, absolutely nothing. It is really wonderful. What is your favourite work of art? © 2014 The Pharmaceutical Trade Marks Group Circulated for information only to PTMG Members. PTMG does not accept any liability or responsibility for any inaccuracies contained within this edition of LL&P. The views expressed by the authors do not necessarily respresent the views of PTMG Editor: Vanessa Parker Tel.: +33 679 316 860 email: vparkercordier@wanadoo.fr It is probably a small island on the west-coast of Sweden, Nordkoster. It is my own paradise since I was five years old. My wife and I go there every year. 13