INTA Brings EUIPO and UKIPO Together with English-Speaking Caribbean IP Offices

A core objective of the Trademark Office Practices Committee (TOPC) is to serve as liaison between intellectual property (IP) offices and trademark owners and trademark practitioners, as well as to promote the exchange of ideas and better practices for trademark protection among these stakeholders.

In this vein, the TOPC—Latin America TMOs Subcommittee organized a virtual workshop in February that brought record attendance from 12 English-speaking Caribbean IP offices and furthered the Subcommittee’s goals of bringing increased attention to the unique challenges of the various Caribbean jurisdictions and finding opportunities to share best practices and create synergies among the IP offices. The region has been challenging for many brand owners and practitioners due to the myriad differences in the day-to-day practices among IP offices. The session gathered 73 attendees, including 60 IP officials and examiners from the dozen IP offices represented.

In addition to inviting IP authorities in every English-speaking Caribbean jurisdiction, the Subcommittee also secured participation from the IP offices of the European Union (EUIPO) and the United Kingdom (UKIPO). The result was a fantastic virtual working session where participants discussed and exchanged better practices on trademark matters throughout the region.

Participants discussed practical issues related to the formalities and classifications that affect the expedited processing of trademark applications. Specialists from the EUIPO and UKIPO shared their common practices, and examiners and officers from Caribbean IP offices were able to ask questions and share their experiences.

Attendees also discussed how IP offices handle requirements for powers of attorney, authorizations of agent, and priority documents, as well as the criteria that the different registries have on formalities required for assignment documents to record changes of ownership in registered trademarks.

A debate on classification matters helped attendees understand which supplemental classifications are adopted by these jurisdictions on entries that are not in perfect alignment with the Nice Classification or TMclass, and shed light on how the IP offices deal with the classification of goods that are a result of new technologies or new markets and which are not part of a current classification.

High-ranking personnel from the IP offices of Barbados, Belize, Bermuda, the Cayman Islands, Curaçao, Dominica, Guyana, Montserrat, St. Kitts and Nevis, St. Lucia, and Trinidad and Tobago, participated in the event. In his opening speech, Regan Asgarali, Head of the Trinidad and Tobago IP Office, called for more events of this kind.

Although every effort has been made to verify the accuracy of this article, readers are urged to check independently on matters of specific concern or interest.

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