Petra Herkul at MARQUES Spring Meeting

Class 46 is pleased to bring an update from the new Chair of the MARQUES Anti-Counterfeiting and Parallel Trade Team, Petra Herkul. Petra writes:

On Thursday March 22 the current and former chairs of the ACPT Team joined the European Observatory Private Sector Representatives Meeting.

The Observatory

For those not familiar with this institute, the Observatory, formally the European Observatory on Infringements of Intellectual Property Rights, is a network of experts and specialist stakeholders, established in 2009 as part of the EU Commission’s Internal Market and Services Directorate-General, and in 2012 entrusted to the EUIPO. More information can be found here. The Observatory consists of working groups that discuss specific topics in the field of IPR infringement and counterfeiting.

In the Private Sector Representatives Meeting, representatives of various organizations, including MARQUES, meet with European Commission Representatives and EUIPO representatives to discuss a large variety of topics.

In the March meeting the Observatory activities and European Commission initiatives were presented and discussed. The private sector representatives had the opportunity to provide their feedback and input on the various topics.

Support from brand owners

Three topics were discussed which require support from brand owners.

The EDB Forum which will be taking place in Alicante on 13 and 14 June this year. The purpose of this forum is to connect enforcers and right holders making use of the EDB. As soon as EUIPO opens registration, MARQUES will provide more information.

IPR TechWatch of Observatory: Since new technologies are likely to have ann impact on IPR infringement and counterfeiting and the fight against this, the Observatory is interested in members with knowledge of or interest in this topic. If any members are willing to share experiences or are aware of any initiatives in this field please contact MARQUES ERO Alessandra Romeo.

Blockathon: This year the EUIPO will organize a so called Blockathon, a coding competition that will last four days, in which a large number of people, such as computer programmers, software developers, subject matter experts and other stakeholders meet to engage in collaborative computer programming. The goal of this competition is to find solutions for supply chain tracking and tracing to simplify the distinguishing of fake products from genuine ones. More information will follow but MARQUES members are already invited to consider participation, sponsorship, exhibiting products and explaining challenges.

MARQUES is pleased to be part of this institute, allowing us to provide input from the brand owners’ perspective.

If you are interested in more detailed information you can find this on the Observatory website or by contacting Petra Herkul via the ACPT Team page.