News

Intellectual Property offices: available and at full capacity … ‘online’

With regard to the spread of COVID-19 worldwide, several Patent and Trademark Offices in different countries announced  exceptional measures to protect their teams and to adapt their activity to the restrictions adopted by the different Governments. Some of these extraordinary measures include the suspension of face-to-face customer service and the extension of administrative periods or their interruption during the state of emergency.

From the Data Intelligence team of ClarkeModet, led by Celso Barrutia, we have monitored with special attention the activity in these offices during the past few days, particularly focusing on the publications of trademark applications of the European Intellectual Property Office (EUIPO), the Spanish Patent and Trademark Office (OEPM) and the National Institute of Intellectual Property of Portugal (INPI).

In this analysis, we have detected that the activity in these offices has stayed at the same level with respect to previous weeks in spite of the exceptional situation thanks to telematic registration.

Thus, we can see that from the OEPM, the number of publications of trademark applications has remained stable this month, on average 270 daily, also after the official announcement of the extraordinary measures by this institution on Monday 16th March.

In the Portuguese INPI the number of publications of trademark applications has also remained stable this month, on average 80 daily, also after the official announcement of the extraordinary measures on Thursday 19th March.

In turn, the EUIPO, with 520 trademark applications on average daily, has also maintained its usual activity after the official announcement of the measured adopted by this institution on Monday 16th March.

These data show how these three Intellectual Property offices have responded quickly and effectively to the extraordinary measures adopted against the worldwide health emergency, an additional guarantee for the correct protection of the Intellectual Property rights of their proprietors, which in practice can continue to operate in these offices through the available telematic means in a completely normal manner.