IRZ expert and patent attorney Manuel Soria Parra

IRZ expert and patent attorney Manuel Soria Parra
IRZ expert and patent attorney Manuel Soria Parra
Kazakhstan

On 29 June 2021, IRZ supported the seminar on the “Legal Protection of Unregistered Designs in the EU” organised and held by the Ministry of Justice of the Republic of Kazakhstan.

Representatives of the European Commission, the European Patent Office, the Eurasian Patent Office and the state bodies of the Republic of Kazakhstan, as well as Kazakh judges and patent attorneys, took part in the event.

IRZ expert Manuel Soria Parra, a patent attorney, participated in the event with a presentation on the “Unregistered Protection of industrial Designs”. He addressed the following questions and topics in his presentation:

  • What can be protected by Community designs?
  • The territorial scope of Community designs
  • Considerations of the legislator on the subject
  • Scope of unregistered Community designs
  • How do I obtain an unregistered Community design?
  • Co-existence of registered and unregistered Community designs

Manuel Soria Parra stressed that the EU Commission will revise the EU legislation on design protection after the successful reform of the EU trademark law. The aim here is to improve the accessibility and affordability of design protection in the EU and to ensure that the design protection regime better supports the transition to the digital and green economy.

In addition to the IRZ expert, the following speakers also participated in the event with expert contributions:

  • Tomas Lorenzo Eichenberg, Senior Expert, Intellectual Property Unit, European Commission
  • Julie Fiodorova, Head of the Legal Department of the Eurasian Patent Organisation
  • Aliya Dauylbayeva, Senior Expert, Department of Trademarks, Appellations of Origin and Designs, National Institute of Intellectual Property of the Republic of Kazakhstan

They gave detailed and clear presentations of the legal basis for unregistered designs and provided an international perspective on the protection of unregistered designs in the EU.

At the end of the event, the Kazakh participants asked numerous technical questions, which were answered extensively by the speakers.

The aim of the seminar was to look at the experiences of EU countries in terms of the protection of unregistered designs in the EU and this objective was successfully implemented in a highly productive manner.