On July 12, 2021, the President of the Eurasian Patent Office (EAPO) Saule Tlevlessova held a virtual meeting with the Executive Director of the European Union Intellectual Property Office (EUIPO) Christian Archambeau to discuss priority areas of cooperation between the EAPO and EUIPO.

The main purpose of the meeting was the mutual exchange of information on the latest developments and achievements of the two regional offices in the field of registration of industrial designs.

Opening the meeting, Saule Tlevlessova spoke about the results of the work of the Eurasian Patent Organization on the creation of a Eurasian system of legal protection for industrial designs, on the certification of Eurasian patent attorneys specializing in this area, and the start of acceptance of Eurasian applications for industrial designs.

Christian Archambeau praised the success of the EAPO and personally the President of the EAPO Saule Tlevlessova in creating a new regional system, solving in an extremely short time the related technical, political and other issues.

During the talks, the heads of the EAPO and EUIPO discussed the course and further development of bilateral cooperation.

President Tlevlessova thanked EUIPO for the consultations provided at the stage of creating the Eurasian system of legal protection of industrial designs, and for the webinar on industrial designs held in June this year for experts from the national patent offices of the EAPO and EAPC Contracting states. In this regard, Christian Archambeau assured the EAPO of EUIPO’s intention to expand cooperation in the field of mutual exchange of expertise and operational practices and experience in the use of specialized electronic systems and services.

At the end of the online talks, the heads of the two regional offices discussed the current performance of the EAPO and EUIPO and the ongoing measures to overcome the negative consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Cooperation between the EAPO and EUIPO is carried out on the basis of the Memorandum of Understanding on bilateral cooperation signed in 2019, meetings of the heads of regional offices are held regularly.