Last month we participated in a WIPO Conference organised by the Austrian Patent Office (APO) in Wien.
The most interesting presentations were given by Dr. Marcus Höpperger, Director of the Law and Legislative Advice Division and by Mr. Yoshiyuki Takagi, Assistant Director General of WIPO.
Mr. Höpperger had more presentations during the day. For us, the most impressive was the one about the International Trade Mark System with some examples how trade marks affect our everyday life. He showed as an example Manet’s famous painting „A Bar at the Folies -Bergeres”, which pictures the oldest registered UK trade mark Bass & Co. Pale Ale several times. He also mentioned that the oldest trade mark in the International Trade Mark System which is still valid and renewed is Longines’s (now Swatch Group) „EFC Longines” trade mark with the earlier registration number 000014:
Later on, Mr. Takagi introduced the databases developed by WIPO which are – at least for us – completely new.
There is the PATENTSCOPE database, which provides access to international Patent Cooperation Treaty (PCT) applications in full text format on the day of publication. You have a lot of searching options in the database, by names, keywords, international patent classification etc.
For trade mark lawyers, the newly established Global Brand Database seems to be a very handy tool. In one database you can search for trade marks registered under Madrid System, appellations of Origin registered under Lisbon System, emblems protected under the Paris Convention 6ter and countries such as Algeria, Australia, Canada, Egypt, Estonia, Israel, Morocco, Singapore, Switzerland, UAE, US. By using this system in combination with TMview you can do searches and examination of earlier marks so quickly that it was not imaginable before.
For Green tech enthusiasts there is the WIPO GREEN initiative which is a global database allowing users to make green technologies available for licensing or partnership, enter technology needs, search for technologies and needs
More information: www.wipo.int