On 9 December 2021, the CARIFORUM Directorate and the CARIFORUM Intellectual Property and Innovation Project, CarIPI, will be launching a new consultation tool, Caribbean TMclass, a regional interface of TMclass.
On 14 December 2021, CarIPI provided a training session in Dutch on trade mark (TM) examination, directed at the IP office (IPO) staff of BIE Suriname. It was also open to legal professionals and IP practitioners in Suriname. The course’s goal was to enhance the IPO’s staff’s capacity to perform their TM examination tasks.
On 30 November the AfrIPI Project team presented the Annual Work Plan to the Steering Committee. The AWP2 will be carried out from 1 January 2022 to 31 December 2022 and will consist of 4 main objectives: Promoted international agreements in the area of IPR & AfCFTA negotiations, Strengthened national & regional IP institutions, networks, and tools, Strengthened capacities of MSMEs/ productive sector on IP and Support to AU Continental strategy for GIs.
As part of the CarIPI Mentorship Programme, which provides technical support to selected producer groups of origin-linked products, on 26 November the project’s team met with the producer groups of Origin Link Products from the Dominican Republic to gather further information and better plan their engagement in this program.
On 6-7 December, CarIPI collaborated with the World Intellectual Property Organization and the Government of Saint Lucia in organising a 2-day workshop on capacity building for the strategic use of IP by regional producers and exporters in the agro-business sector.
On 30 November and 1 December AfrIPI is organising a training for trademark examiners. This training aims to showcase practical organisational measures to manage the timeframes of examination (regional and international trademarks), opposition and ownership claim procedures, to build on the practice of splitting the application, and to share practical experience on the assessment of the distinctiveness of a trademark (all types of trademarks including so-called non-traditional trademarks).
On 17 November, CarIPI joined forces with the Registry of Companies & Intellectual Property of Saint Lucia (ROCIP) in a training directed at trade mark agents of the Office. The purpose of this event was to present the features and benefits of the TMclass tool. During the same session, an EUIPO expert on IT tools ran a demonstration of TMclass, and was available for questions and comments.
As of 15 November 2021, the Antigua and Barbuda Intellectual Property and Companies Office (ABIPCO) will be included in TMclass. ABIPCO will join with the alphabetical list of the Nice classification and a supplement of common terms between the harmonised database of goods and services (HDB) and the Madrid Goods & Services (MGS).
A stakeholder consultation meeting with Georgian enforcement authorities has taken place today to talk about the comparative analysis of the EU and Georgian legislations.