The 21st session of the Working Group on the Legal Development of the Madrid System for the International Registration of Marks took place from November 13 to 17, 2023, in Geneva.
The Working Group meeting was opened by Binying Wang, Deputy Director General of the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO), who was impressed by the large number of delegates present in the room after the pandemic period, noting that the Madrid System is developing, through the accession of new members, the last countries being Belize and Mauritius, thus the number of members reaching 114 covering 130 countries. Also mentioned were the benefits of filing applications online through the Madrid eFiling platform, the tendency of trademark owners to manage and preserve their portfolio, a fact visible in the higher number of renewed trademarks.
The meeting was attended by representatives of 86 member states, 13 observer states, 1 international intergovernmental organization and 15 international non-governmental organizations.
From the Republic of Moldova, the event was attended by:
- Ludmila Cocieru, Head, International Trademarks Division, Trademarks and Industrial Design Department, State Agency on Intellectual Property of the Republic of Moldova (AGEPI) - present in the meeting room at the WIPO headquarters
and online:
- Victoria Pulbere, Deputy Head, Trademarks and Industrial Design Department, AGEPI,
- Galina Bologan, principal consultant, International Trademarks Division, Trademarks and Industrial Design Department, AGEPI.
During the meetings, proposals were discussed to amend the Regulations under the Protocol Relating the Madrid Agreement with reference to the international registration of trademarks, the time limit to respond to notifications of provisional refusal, other topics discussed in the previous sessions, as well as in this session. Including, the updated report on the introduction of new languages under the Madrid System, such as: Arabic, Chinese and Russian, was analyzed.
Also, on November 15-16, 2023, a roundtable was organized where several technical topics/issues were discussed/addressed by both the WIPO International Bureau and the offices, such as: e-filing of applications and data exchange with intellectual property offices, classification of goods and services, financial aspects, partial deletion, promotion of the Madrid System, etc.
During the roundtable, under the heading Marketing and Promotion of the Madrid System, topic 9 on the agenda, Ludmila Cocieru, presented the experience of the Republic of Moldova regarding the distribution of the Madrid System booklet.
All materials can be accessed at: Groupe de travail sur le développement juridique du système de Madrid concernant l'enregistration international des marques: Vingt et unième session (wipo.int).
