Innovation and Intellectual Property Rights in CARIFORUM Strengthened by EU support

The CARIFORUM Intellectual Property Rights and Innovation Project (CarIPI) will end on 30 April 2024, and to mark its conclusion, a conference event was held in Alicante on 15 and 16 April 2024, to review achievements, assess results and focus on future opportunities for cooperation.

This project, implemented by the European Union Intellectual Property Office (EUIPO), has worked closely with CARIFORUM IP offices and other stakeholders on various lines of action to achieve the following results:

• Strengthening IP offices by supporting more efficient and user-friendly IP systems.
• Supporting the modernisation and effective implementation of IP enforcement mechanisms in the CARIFORUM States.
• Contributing to the development of a sustainable and innovative private sector.
• Promoting trade between the EU and CARIFORUM, and in particular within the CARIFORUM region.

The Director General CARIFORUM Directorate, Ms Alexis Downes-Amsterdam, said: ‘We have benefited immensely from the CarIPI project experience on how to design and implement good initiatives. We’ve also seen the undeniable advantage of working together and learning from each other and how to address common challenges. The lessons learned from this project will certainly inform similar initiatives’.

‘Through collaborative efforts this project has progressed to achieve the operating and harmonising of systems for IP creations, administration and protection in line with EPA provisions’, added Mr Sheldon Jackman, EU Project Manager.

Throughout the project implementation, CarIPI organised over 130 capacity building development activities such as training courses, events and seminars for IP practitioners, enforcers, academia and the private sector. More than 6 000 participants attended these events and more than 150 awareness products were produced in the form of learning materials, webinars and e-learning courses.