IPOPHL Director General Rowel S. Barba and EUIPO Executive Director Christian Archambeau separately signed last May the “Memorandum of Understanding on Bilateral Cooperation” which renews the MoU first signed in 2014. 

“The outcomes of the previous IPOPHL-EUIPO MoU contributed substantially in our goal of improving the Philippine IP environment,” DG Barba said. 

In force for five years to 2019, the previous MoU provided IPOPHL with numerous capacity-building training on IP services, awareness, and enforcement. It also equipped the Office with the technological tools and knowhow to successfully join the Designview, the largest online consultation tool for industrial designs, and the TMClass, an international classification tool that provides member-countries access to the largest classification databases in the world. 

“Our continued cooperation with the EUIPO will sustain our momentum towards becoming an IP office that is on a par with global standards for IP services,” DG Barba added.

The current MoU Identified IP administration and services, awareness, economics, education and research as areas of cooperation.

This means IPOPHL will benefit from immense knowledge sharing and capacity-building that will enable it to maximize technology for operational and management efficiency; employ global best practices in local enforcement; launch effective awareness and learning campaigns; promote the conduct of IP-related surveys; and fuel IP research in the country. 

The two IP offices will soon begin work on drafting a plan to implement the cooperation deal which lasts four years up to 2024. 

The MoU is part of EUIPO’s broader objective of building ties with various international IP offices toward potentially forging strategic long-term partnerships. ### (Janina Lim, Media Relations Officer)