The bilateral meeting at the level of Directors General of the State Agency on Intellectual Property of the Republic of Moldova (AGEPI) and the State Office for Inventions and Trademarks of Romania (OSIM) took place in Chisinau in the period 2-3 March, in Chisinau. The main purpose of the meeting was to approve and sign the Joint Program of Cooperation between AGEPI and OSIM for the years 2018-2019 and to strengthen cooperation relations in the field of intellectual property between the two offices.
In the opening, AGEPI Director General Lilia Bolocan thanked Romanian colleagues for accepting the invitation, mentioning the need to intensify the cooperation between the intellectual property offices.
Thus, during the meeting, AGEPI and OSIM delegations exchanged information on recent developments in the field of intellectual property in the Republic of Moldova and Romania reviewing the successes of the offices and the challenges they face at the current stage in order to achieve the proposed objectives. At the same time, the topic of protection and promotion of geographical indications was also addressed, the Republic of Moldova and Romania having a great potential in this field. During the meeting, the priority directions of the cooperation between AGEPI and OSIM in the field of development and consolidation of the national intellectual property protection system were also identified.
In accordance with the program of the working visit, members of the delegation participated in the meeting of the AGEPI Appeals Board of 2 March this year, in which the disputes concerning some industrial property objects were examined, exchanging views on the practices applied by the offices in the procedure of examination and settlement of appeals filed, the provisions of the national legislation in the field of dispute settlement.
At the same time, issues related to the effects of the Memorandum of Understanding between OSIM and AGEPI on the acceleration of the patent procedure and the cooperation of the offices in organizing and carrying out the second edition of the Contest on Intellectual Property for Young People were discussed.
At the end of the working visit, the members of the delegations assured themselves of mutual support and were open to the organization of other meetings of this kind.
