A bilateral meeting at management level between the State Agency on Intellectual Property (AGEPI) and the European Union Intellectual Property Office (EUIPO) took place on July 4, this year, in online format.

The purpose of the meeting was to address the priorities of bilateral cooperation between AGEPI and EUIPO, being also made an exchange of views on the latest developments in the field of intellectual property (IP) at European level and the challenges they face in the context of new realities.

In the opening of the meeting, the Executive Director of EUIPO, Christian Archambeau, congratulated the Moldovan delegation on obtaining the status of candidate country for the European Union by the Republic of Moldova and assured the agency of the full availability of EUIPO to further support the path of European integration of our country.

In his turn, the Director General of AGEPI, Eugeniu Rusu, welcomed the initiative to organize such meetings and thanked the European partners for the openness, while emphasizing the importance of EUIPO’s support in building the national trademark and industrial design protection system, as well as the European Office’s contribution to strengthening AGEPI’s institutional capacity.

In his speech, the Executive Director of EUIPO addressed the impact of the war in Ukraine on the world and regional economy and its repercussions on the IP protection system in the region, respectively.

The European official also referred to the impact of the COVID 19 pandemic on the activity of examining and granting Community trademark and design protection, presenting the measures to modernize the technological tools undertaken in order to streamline the process of examining applications.

Next, the head of the Communication and International Relations Department, Liliana Vieru, informed the EUIPO delegation about the latest developments in the field of IP in the Republic of Moldova, including the actions to be taken in the context of the European integration process.

“As it is known, on June 23, the Republic of Moldova, together with Ukraine, obtained the status of a candidate country for accession to the European Union. We have come a long way to get here, and AGEPI, within the limits of its competencies and capabilities, has made every effort to contribute to this achievement.

As part of this process, recently, AGEPI was involved in preparing the answers to the EU questionnaire, which served the European institutions empowered to form an opinion on the merits and preparation of the Republic of Moldova to obtain the status of candidate country.”

Next, the AGEPI representatives reviewed the most important achievements in the legal and institutional field, both in terms of trademark and industrial design, as well as in other priority areas for our country, such as improving the copyright and related rights system, streamlining the mechanism of granting compulsory licenses for patents for inventions, etc.

The head of the Trademarks and Industrial Design Department, Simion Levițchi, presented the dynamics regarding the filing and granting of protection for trademarks and industrial design and mentioned the importance of bilateral cooperation in the implementation process within AGEPI of European practices in the field. The AGEPI representative thanked for the support provided in the process of modernizing IT tools by integrating them into EUIPO systems, such as DesignView, TMView and TMclass, DesignClass.

Finally, the Parties exchanged information on ongoing and planned projects, including the opportunity to implement a regional IP project for CEFTA Member States, and agreed on the need to expand AGEPI-EUIPO bilateral cooperation in the context of the new status obtained by Republic of Moldova.

We recall that in 2021, AGEPI and EUIPO signed a new Memorandum of Understanding on bilateral cooperation, which involves cooperation in the field of intellectual property in order to strengthen intellectual property (IP) systems and services by organizing joint actions, exchanges of experience and implementing joint data integration projects in the field of trademarks and industrial design.