Dr. István Gödölle was born in 1940 in Budapest, Hungary. He graduated from the Technical University of Budapest in 1963 with a M.Sc.Elec.Eng. degree. From 1963 to 1969 he was an electrical engineer with the Institute for Measurement Technology, then with the Institute for Occupational Health, both in Budapest. In 1970 he passed his patent attorney examination, and in 1978 he received his Doctor of Law degree from Eötvös Loránd University in Budapest. He started his patent career with a Hungarian business machine company in 1969. He entered private patent and trademark practice in 1971 and was with the law firm of Patent & Law Office for International Affairs until 1990 when this firm was established.
Dr. Gödölle was a research fellow with Max Planck Institute for Foreign and International Patent, Copyright and Competition Law in Munich, Germany, in 1983. He lectured on patent law at the Law Faculty of Eötvös Loránd University and published numerous articles on different subjects of intellectual property law. He is a member of the Editorial Board of the European Trade Mark Reports, London, United Kingdom. He was a member of the Advisory Committee for Industrial Property at the Ministry of Justice in 1994. He is presently a member of the Hungarian Intellectual Property Protection Council and of the Standing Advisory Committee before the European Patent Office.
Dr. Gödölle has been a member of AIPPI since 1974 and was a member of the international Programme Committee of AIPPI from 1995 to 2001. In the Hungarian Group of AIPPI he served as General Secretary from 1991 to 1998 and has been President since 1998. He is a member of FICPI, INTA, MARQUES, UNION (member of the European Trademarks Group), LIDC and ATRIP, furthermore of the Hungarian Trademark Association and the Hungarian Association of Competition Law. He has been a member of the Presidency and Committee, respectively, of the Hungarian Association for the Protection of Industrial Property and Copyright since 1990. He was President of the Hungarian Chamber of Patent Attorneys from 1996 to 1999. Dr. Gödölle was awarded the Jedlik Ányos Prize by the President of the Hungarian Patent Office in 1999 and the AIPPI Award of Merit in 2000.