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Presentation of the practice of the Boards of Appeal of the European Union Intellectual Property Office

At yesterday's event, experts from the Boards of Appeal of the European Union Intellectual Property Office (EUIPO) presented to the Slovenian public novelties and practical examples of how to deal with trade mark and design appeals.

The EUIPO Boards of Appeal are responsible for deciding on appeals against decisions taken at first instance by the EUIPO in relation to European Union trade marks and registered Community designs. The EUIPO Boards of Appeal are independent and are not bound by any instructions when deciding cases.

The event was organised jointly by the Intellectual Property Office and the EUIPO Boards of Appeal. It was aimed at agents, judges and other IP professionals.

Office Director Karin Žvokelj and representatives of the EUIPO Boards of Appeal

Office Director Karin Žvokelj and representatives of the EUIPO Boards of Appeal | Author Boštjan Lešnjak

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In her opening address, the Director of the Office, Ms Karin Žvokelj, stressed the importance of cooperation between the Office, the judiciary and experts in the field of intellectual property and said that the Office would continue to organise events presenting current professional topics and innovations of the most important institutions in this field. She also informed the participants about the activities in the framework of the preparation of the National Strategy for Intellectual Property.

The President of the EUIPO Boards of Appeal, João Negrão, first of all praised the proactivity of the Slovenian Intellectual Property Office and thanked for the excellent cooperation. He then presented the work of the Boards of Appeal and the statistics of complaints filed in recent years, where the trend is strongly upwards. In this light, an action plan had been prepared, with the most important objective being that the Boards of Appeal would be able to deal with an increasing number of increasingly complex appeal cases.

Below, experts from the EUIPO Boards of Appeal presented interesting developments in case law. Most of the time was devoted to the alternative dispute resolution process, in particular the legal framework and principles, the eligibility criteria for IP mediation and how to apply them, and the EUIPO Mediation Centre was presented in more detail.

In the final part, a discussion was developed on the practical cases presented.

The event was organised with the financial support of EUIPO in the framework of the European cooperation programme between EUIPO and the Intellectual Property Offices of the Member States of the European Union.