How do Germany and EU countries protect intellectual property? What best practices should be adopted by Ukraine? How is arranged the interaction between courts, customs and rights holders? What is the current practice of the European Patent Office and the Unified Patent Court?
These and other issues were investigated by representatives of the Ministry of Economy of Ukraine and the Ukrainian National Office for Intellectual Property and Innovations (UANIPIO) during a study visit to Munich (Germany), which took place from May 3 to 11, 2025. In course of the week, the Ukrainian delegation studied European practices of patent examination, law enforcement, combating piracy and counterfeiting, innovation policy and collective right management at the level of leading German and European institutions.
Among the members of the delegation from UANIPIO were:
The program of the visit covered the discussion of key topics:
The Ukrainian delegation got acquainted with modern mechanisms for the protection of intellectual property rights in Germany and the EU, including civil and criminal response tools. Particular attention was paid to Commission Recommendation on measures to combat counterfeiting and enhance the enforcement of intellectual property rights (2024) No. 1739, which defines priorities in ensuring effective enforcement – from strengthening interagency cooperation to ensuring effective access of rights holders to court.
During the visit, the delegation got acquainted with the approaches to the examination of inventions, the processes of filing applications and objections, appeal procedures, access to patent information and EPO databases, as well as the use of artificial intelligence tools in examination procedures, taking into account the strategic goal of harmonizing the national intellectual property system with European standards.
UANIPIO representatives studied the work of electronic services, the PACE procedure, as well as the level of patent documentation transparency.
The implementation of a unitary patent and the functioning of the Unified Patent Court (UPC), which is already forming a new European architecture of judicial protection in the field of patent law, were separately discussed.
As part of the study visit, representatives from the Max Planck Institute for Innovation and Competition presented approaches to the development of innovation policy, regulation of intellectual property and competition law in the EU.
The approaches of the Institute to conducting economic research on the impact of IP on the development of markets and competition, as well as the role of analytics in the formation of public policy – an experience that is extremely relevant for Ukraine in the context of post-war reconstruction – were discussed.
The members of the delegation visited the local UPC office in Munich. The purpose of the visit was to familiarize the members of the delegation with the principles and functioning of the Unified Patent Court in general and the local office in Munich in particular.
The activities of the Unified Patent Court were presented by the head of the Munich office of the UPC. Representatives of the Ukrainian IP office studied the structure and jurisdiction of the UPC, learned about its role in the unification of judicial practice in the field of patent law, and also got acquainted with the peculiarities of the consideration of cases.
Also, the participants of the study visit got acquainted with the experience of the German Patent and Trade Mark Office (DPMA). Particular attentenion was paid to the features of the examination of utility models and software-related inventions, as well as measures to counter piracy – from blocking sites to interagency cooperation in cyberspace.
The Ukrainian delegation focused on the mechanisms for implementing European Union directives into German national legislation in the field of protection of trademarks and industrial designs, as well as on institutional tools for ensuring compliance with acquis communautaire.
A separate meeting was dedicated to Amazon’s policies in the fight against counterfeit products. The focus was on digital tools and models of cooperation with rights holders and authorities — an experience that can be adapted to Ukrainian realities.
The visit to the Federal Patent Court made it possible to gain a deeper understanding of the German IP justice system, the distribution of competences between instances and the practice in cases involving patents and appeals against Office decisions.
In particular, the delegation got acquainted with the structure of the Federal Patent Court and its procedural interaction with the Munich Regional Court, which specializes in intellectual property cases.
The final chord of the visit was the discussion of developments, recommendations and next steps – from ideas on strengthening customs and judicial protection in Ukraine to deeper cooperation with EU institutions, in particular in the context of implementation of the EU acquis and acquiring the European Union membership.
Ukraine is already harmonizing its IP system with European standards. At the same time, it is important that this process is not only technical, but also systematic – based on judicial practice, digital tools, law enforcement effectiveness and interaction between all institutions. The Munich experience provides a unique perspective on how exactly this can be implemented – in partnership with the state, rights holders, platforms and civil society.
UANIPIO expresses its gratitude for the organization of the study visit to the TIPSTER project, implemented by the NGU “Foundation for Support of Reforms in Ukraine” within the framework of the international cooperation project ReACT4UA “Application and Implementation of the Association Agreement between the EU and Ukraine in the Field of Trade”, funded by the German government and implemented by the German federal company Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) GmbH.
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