On 15 October the Spanish Patent and Trademark Office (SPTO), with support from the EUIPO’s European cooperation projects, completed its technical stack upgrade of the designs front office system. This followed a set of improvements to the back office system on 10 October.

Experts from the European Union Intellectual Property Network (EUIPN) are meeting virtually for the 9th European Cooperation Projects (ECP) working groups.

As a result of the joint efforts of the CP11 Working Group members, MS IPOs, User Associations and non-EU IPOs, the final drafts of both work streams of the CP11: New types of marks – examination of formal requirements and grounds for refusal were approved in the Extended Working Group meetings which took place virtually on 7 and 8 September.

On 21 September 2020, the Romanian State Office for Inventions and Trademarks (OSIM) successfully integrated its front office and back office systems. This will allow trade marks and designs filed in the front office to be automatically available in the back office application without any need for manual intervention.

The Greek Trademark Office (GGE), with the support of the EUIPO’s European Cooperation Projects, has implemented several functional enhancements to its Back Office tool.

The Polish Patent Office (PPO), with the support of the EUIPO’s European Cooperation Projects, has upgraded its back office system.

As of 14 September 2020, the African Intellectual Property Organization (OAPI) has enhanced its participation in TMclass and joined DesignClass.

On 3-7 August and 1-2 September 2020, the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) virtually hosted the 2020 ID5 Mid-Term and TM5 Expert Meeting of the world’s five largest trade mark and designs offices.

Following the recent certification of Thessaloniki (Greece) as the first Authenticity under the framework of the European Cooperation Project (ECP8) ‘European Network of Authenticities’, the Hellenic Industrial Property Organisation (OBI) and the Municipality of Thessaloniki held the project kick-off event and media launch on 11 September 2020.

The biannual European Cooperation technical visits will take place between 7 -29 September 2020, this time in a virtual format.