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New Executive Director appointed
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 MARQUES is pleased to announce that it has appointed Christopher Barnard as its Executive Director. This is a new role created to meet the expanding influence of MARQUES in the IP world over the last few years.
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MARQUES to host organisations meeting
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OHIM President on Croatia enlargement
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On 15th March MARQUES will host the annual one-day meeting of the European Sister Organisations which besides MARQUES include: APRAM, BMM, ECTA, GRUR, ITMA and UNION.
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On 12th December, the President of OHIM issued Communication No 4/12 concerning the enlargement of the European Union to Croatia.
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10 Years of the Community Design conference
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 2013 marks an important milestone for OHIM as it is the 10th anniversary of the filing of the first registered Community design.
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Full coverage for OHIM’s EuroClass tool
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 According to an OHIM press release in January, all EU national offices, including Croatia, have been integrated into the useful classification tool known as EuroClass. The Latvian IP office joined the system at the end of December 2012.
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WIPO expands Global Brand Database
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Don’t miss WIPO’s Madrid Highlights
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On 20th February, the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) announced a major expansion of its public database of trade mark and brand information.
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Madrid Highlights is a quarterly publication from WIPO, which aims to keep the Madrid system’s stakeholders up to date with the latest developments within the Madrid system and provide information on the activities of the Madrid system Sector.
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Report from Lisbon System Working Group
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 Miguel Angel Medina and Sébastian Vitali of the MARQUES Geographical Indications Team represented MARQUES at the 6th Session of the Working Group on the Development of the Lisbon System (Geographical Indications) in Geneva from December 3rd to 7th 2012. Both Miguel Angel and Sébastian took an active part in the two main topics under discussion:
- the relationship between the protection of appellations of origin/geographical indications and trade mark rights; and
- how provisions of other international instruments, such as the Paris Convention or the TRIPs Agreement, should be made applicable under the Draft New Instrument.
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Featured GI number 3: Salzwedeler Baumkuchen
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 In this issue of GeoNews, Ortrun Günzel introduces one of her favourite geographical indications: Salzwedeler Baumkuchen, a savoury cake from Germany.
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Evidence collection and trade mark proceedings
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MARQUES Media Round-up
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A workshop at the MARQUES Annual Meeting last year showed that evidence in trade mark proceedings is a hot button issue. Now the Brands and Marketing Team has produced an online checklist to help. Shelagh Carnegie reports.
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 Catch up on the news and discussions from the MARQUES website and social media channels.
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During the Marques 2012 Annual Meeting in Athens, Greece the Brands and Marketing Team presented a workshop on the topic of the different types of evidence typically collected in the context of trade-mark proceedings by corporate marketing departments and brand owners. The workshop was moderated by Shelagh Carnegie (Gowling Lafleur Henderson LLP).
Gregor Versondert (Procter & Gamble International Operations SA) began the workshop by describing the type of evidence that is considered essential from the perspective of brand owners and how this evidence should be presented. In the category of “must haves” he listed (i) the “affidavit” which describes sales revenues, advertising expenditures and critical dates; (ii) classical “physical” evidence such as product samples and packaging; and (iii) invoices. Gregor went on to discuss how corporate counsel can effectively work with their marketing departments to preserve the best evidence and stressed the importance and challenges of managing deadlines and procedural requirements.
Speakers from Europe (Fabrizio Jacobacci – Studio Legale Jacobacci & Associati), China (Qu Miao – King and Wood Mallesons) and the United States (Julia Anne Matheson – Finnegan Henderson Farabow Garrett & Dunner, LLP) then described how this evidence is used and evaluated in a variety of trade-mark proceedings in their respective jurisdictions. The presentations highlighted jurisdictional differences in procedures and the weight given to different types of evidence.
The Brands and Marketing Team created a “check list” of the various types of evidence discussed at the workshop. The check list was developed with the input of all members of the international Team and is intended to represent an international guide to “ideal” trade-mark evidence. A one-page version of the list is published at the Brands and Marketing Team tab on the www.marques.org website. The list is comprehensive and includes the “must haves” mentioned above but also items such as:
- Website hit analytics
- Circulation figures for advertisements
- Television and radio broadcast frequency records
- Lists of company milestones, awards and achievements related to the brand
- Third party media
- Licensing arrangements and corporate structure history
Despite the lure of ancient Greek historical tours the workshop was extremely well attended. An informal survey of the attendees revealed that the workshop was primarily attended by senior counsel in private practice. These attendees were incredibly engaged asking the speakers many questions and revealing that the character and presentation of evidence in trade-mark proceedings is a hot button issue for brand owners and counsel alike.
Shelagh Carnegie (right) is a partner of Gowlings in Canada and a member of the Brands and Marketing Team
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Issue 026
