As part of the official screening on the Ukrainian legislation compliance with EU acquis under negotiating Chapter 7: “Intellectual Property Law”, a mock session of the bilateral meeting between Ukraine and the European Commission to assess the Ukrainian legislation compliance with the EU acquis was launched on September 25, 2024.

 

The purpose of the mock session is to prepare Ukrainian negotiators for further meetings with the European Commission.

 

The first day of the mock session was devoted to industrial property rights and enforcement.

 

Opening the session, Deputy Minister of Economy of Ukraine Vitaliy Kindrativ expressed his gratitude to the experts involved, the team of the EU-funded EU4IP project, and colleagues from EUIPO and EPO for their invaluable support of Ukraine’s European integration efforts, providing the necessary tools and constant experience exchange for further national intellectual property practices’ approximation to the European ones.

 

 

According to him, the Government Office for the Coordination of European and Euro-Atlantic Integration of Ukraine recently submitted Ukraine’s second report to the European Commission as part of the EU’s 2024 Enlargement Package. The document contains about 900 pages, and 140 government agencies took part in its drafting. Vitaliy Kindrativ noted that almost every day there are meetings with European colleagues, activities to approximate practices, preparation of acts to implement the EU acquis, and, most importantly, measures to support our people and businesses.

 

The Ministry of Economy of Ukraine was also represented by Inna Shatova, Deputy Head of the Intellectual Property and Innovations Department, Head of the IP State Policy Department.

 

The IP office was presented at the mock session by:

 

• Olena Orliuk, Director
• Bogdan Paduchak, First Deputy Director;
• Vladyslav Bilotskyi, Deputy Director;
• Liubov Maidanyk, Deputy Director;
• Mykola Pototskyi, Advisor to the Director;
• Heads of the relevant structural units.

 

 

In addition, representatives of ministries, the judiciary, law enforcement and other government agencies took part in the mock session.

 

During the first day, there were presented a series of presentations on various topics:

 

• trademarks;

 

• industrial designs;

 

• craft and industrial geographical indications;

 

• patents (inventions and utility models), including unitary patents;

 

• enforcement of IPRs; implementation of Directive 2004/48/EC on the enforcement of intellectual property rights, administrative and enforcement capacity in the IP sphere;

 

• fighting corruption in the IP sphere.

 

These issues were presented by Bogdan Paduchak. The issue of compulsory licensing, in turn, was presented by Lesya Ukrainets, Head of the International Cooperation and European Integration Department of the Ministry of Health of Ukraine.

 

Rovena Beqiraj, Drita Abdiu-Halili, Romas Svedas, as well as colleagues from the European IP offices – EUIPO and EPO – acted as experts to provide feedback and recommendations to the negotiating parties.

 

 

The mock session will continue tomorrow, September 26, and will focus on copyright, related rights, and semiconductor products layouts.

 

The event was organized with the support of the Government Office for Coordination of European and Euro-Atlantic Integration and the Reform Support Team (RST) of the Ministry of Economy.

 

Read also:

 

The country’s accession to the EU – practical issues for the IP office discussed Bogdan Paduchak during the meeting with the representatives of the Polish Patent Office

 

Preparation of IP sphere for negotiations on Ukraine’s accession to the EU – meeting of the IP Office with the EU Delegation to Ukraine