During the working visit to Chișinău (Moldova), the management of the Ukrainian IP Office took part in the event dedicated to the official launch of EU4IP – a cooperation project between EUIPO and national intellectual property offices – UANIPIO (Ukrainian IP Office), Sakpatenti (Georgia) and AGEPI (Moldova) – for strengthening intellectual property rights in Ukraine, Georgia and Moldova with the support of the EU.

 

 

The event was organized with the participation of João Negrão, Executive Director of the European Union Intellectual Property Office (EUIPO), high-level representatives of the beneficiary countries, the EU Delegation to Moldova and European national intellectual property offices from Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland and Romania within the framework of the Team Europe initiative.

 

The Ukrainian IP Office in Moldova is represented by the IP Office Director (UANIPIO) Olena Orliuk and the First Deputy Director of the IP Office Bogdan Paduchak.

 

Ukraine has already achieved significant results on the way to full membership in the EU, which we are ready to demonstrate. This was emphasized by Olena Orliuk during panel discussion dedicated to the integration of Ukraine, Moldova and Georgia into the European intellectual property system, recent developments and prospects for the future.

 

The IP Office’s Director expressed her gratitude to the European Commission, EUIPO and European national offices for their continued support of Ukraine, especially in these dark times of Russia’s full-scale invasion. She expressed her belief that participation in the EU4IP project will improve the intellectual property and innovation system not only in the three EU candidate countries, but will also bring a positive impact on the global users of the IP system.

 

“I am confident that the project will become a tool of practical support for SMEs, businesses, innovators and creators who need our joint efforts not only to protect their IP rights, but also to open new ways to commercialize them. Ukraine is now working on this very actively”, – emphasized Olena Orliuk.

 

The IP Office Director noted that the challenges of Russian war of aggression against Ukraine are only getting deeper: human loss, brain drain, infrastructure damage, limited financial resources and losses of the IP ecosystem, creative and innovative sectors, and even mental impact. This affects both commercialization of IP rights and the ability to create IP.

 

Olena Orliuk

 

“But despite these challenges, statistics show an increase in the number of applications and renewed interest in the intellectual property rights protection. Compared to 2022, in 2023, the number of trademark applications increased by 55.4%, and the number of industrial design applications increased by almost 35%. The number of applications filed by national inventors under the national procedure increased by 27%,” – noted Olena Orliuk.

 

The fact that the IP and innovations system is developing is also evidenced by the large number of competitions and new projects, in particular in the field of green technology, digitalization, biomedicine, and IT.

 

“Ukraine is demonstrating great progress, and we have to ensure that it has proper and effective protection and enforcement  intellectual property rights mechanisms “, – the IP Office’s  Director is confident.

 

 

Bogdan Paduchak

 

For information:

 

The EU4IP initiative aims to use intellectual property to create an enabling environment for innovation, creativity and free competition. Thus, the partnership paves the way for the three candidate countries – Ukraine, Moldova and Georgia – to join the EU and the European Union Intellectual Property Network (EUIPN), which consists of the EUIPO, national IP offices and EU user associations.

 

 

Photos: Ion Buga Photographer

 

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Strengthening intellectual property rights in Ukraine, Georgia and Moldova to support EU accession