Mr Urho Ilmonen was born in 1953 in Tampere, Finland. He graduated as a lawyer from Helsinki University in 1980, and joined the law firm Roschier-Holmberg & Waselius. There he was admitted to the Finnish bar, and handled commercial issues, litigated and was active in IPR matters.

In 1987 Mr Ilmonen joined the legal department at Nokia Corporation, becoming head of Nokia Mobira Oy's legal services in 1988. His responsibilities included advising on commercial legal matters, supervising litigation on a global basis, as well as supervising IPR and corporate security activities.

Some of the more significant cases handled during this time included the ITC litigation between Motorola Inc. and Nokia, as well as antitrust litigation between Adcom, inc. and Nokia, both in the United States. Mr Ilmonen also handled important acquisitions and divestions, including Technophone Ltd and Cue Paging, Inc.

Product liability and electromagnetic fields issues have frequently been on Mr Ilmonen's list of activities. He has participated in setting up these activities at Nokia.

Mr Ilmonen is a specialist in intellectual property rights. He has worked for AIPPI and LES, and has chaired ICC's Commission on Intellectual Property since 2002, having been the vice chair since December 1998.

He has also been chair of the EICTA Legal and Consumer policy commission since the beginning of 2001.

In 2002 Mr Ilmonen became Director, Corporate relations, Group security, heading the internal service responsible for protecting the people, assets, business and brand of Nokia.