Over the past four years, the EUIPO has been exploring blockchain as a means to ensure product authenticity and move away from siloed systems. which criminal networks use to their advantage. Following up on the Blockchain Competition back in 2018, the definition of the use case and the creation of the multi-parties Blockathon Forum, the EUIPO is working on a strategic project to develop an anti-counterfeiting blockathon infrastructure. The objective is to enable IP authenticity management synchronisation between all parties involved in the supply chain: EU intellectual property offices, governments, customs authorities, manufacturers, transport and logistics operators, intermediaries, and retailers. Everyone has a stake in the anti-counterfeit challenge.
In 2022, following an EU public procurement procedure, the EUIPO revealed the awarded high-level design solution which constitutes the main source of inspiration for the foundation of the end infrastructure which is to be discussed through collaboration and co-creation with the Blockathon Forum. We need you!
Rather than competing with existing solutions such as Non-Fungible Tokens (NFT) platforms, private or public blockchain track and trace solutions or existing and digitally enabled product ID serialisation, the EUIPO will focus on developing dedicated tools to authenticate involved parties in the supply chain. The end solution would be to leverage existing EUIPO tools (TMview, DesignView, IPEP and IP Register in Blockchain) to interconnect with the risk analysis systems of interested enforcement authorities, possibly to improve current alert mechanisms as well as product green lanes border crossing. Let´s define this together.
The EUIPO expects to release a first version of the solution by the end of 2023, and, in the long term, would ideally scale up and evolve in order to connect to the European Blockchain Service Infrastructure and the European Self-Sovereign Identity Framework. Let´s make an impact.
Let’s continue fighting fakes and shape the future together!
Blockathon Team blockathon@euipo.europa.eu
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