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From June 26 to 29 the European Communities Trade Mark Association will welcome its members and attendees from all around the world to its 38th Annual Conference in the historic city of Edinburgh, Scotland, writes Anna Ostanina.
The theme of the conference “New horizons through the Highland haze” matches nicely with this historic and, at the same time, modern location.
The Edinburgh International Conference Centre (EICC) will open its doors to European Communities Trade Mark Association (ECTA) Annual Conference attendees keen to deepen their knowledge in trademarks, designs, geographical indications (GIs), copyright, and internet law topics.
Attendees will have the opportunity to discuss recent case law, learn about legislative developments, legal and industry trends in these areas and network with their peers.
The three days of the conference will be packed with interesting sessions, beginning with two workshops on Wednesday, June 26, covering “Constructing evidence based on disclosure on the internet” and “WIPO/EUIPO new tools and useful statistics”.
Later that day, the welcome reception will take place at Dynamic Earth, a beautiful venue with breathtaking architecture overlooking Salisbury Crags on the edge of the Holyrood Park.
The main sessions of the conference will open on Thursday, June 27. During the latest IP news and trends session ECTA will interview Christian Archambeau, the new executive director of the European Union Intellectual Property Office; after that Gregoire Bisson, director of the Hague registry, brands and designs sector at the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) will speak about the Hague system.
In the following sessions speakers will discuss the implementation of the EU Trademark Directive, emerging new practices and strategies for enforcing unregistered and not examined rights. Of course, there’s also a session on Brexit.
Networking and discussion will continue on Thursday evening at one of Scotland’s finest stately homes, Hopetoun House.
On Friday, June 28, attendees can choose from parallel sessions.
Representatives of sporting events organisers, event sponsors and practitioners will discuss IP challenges within sports. At the same time, there will be a session on digital content and making it available to the public in the EU.
After a coffee break, a dedicated GI session will explore the new horizons of GI protection as legislative changes take effect. In a parallel session, conference attendees will learn about the recent Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers WHOIS-related developments.
The helicopter speech from the Scotch Whisky Association should not be missed on Friday afternoon, before the last session of the conference which is dedicated to the most recent EU case law.
The gala dinner will be served at the National Museum of Scotland, opening exclusively for the attendees of the conference on Friday night.
For those wanting to dive into the history of Scotland and enjoy this unique setting, ECTA has planned a selection of excursions on Saturday morning.
Do not miss the most prestigious annual European IP event and join ECTA in Scotland in June.
For the most up-to-date information, follow ECTA on LinkedIn and visit the ECTA Annual Conference website http://conference.ecta.org
Anna Ostanina is ECTA manager legal affairs and a lawyer specialised in IP law. Prior to joining ECTA, she worked as in-house lawyer at UEFA in Nyon, Switzerland and as a private practice lawyer within the IP & Technology practice group of DLA Piper in London, UK and Kiev, Ukraine. She can be contacted at: ecta@ecta.org
ECTA, EICC, trademarks, designs, GIs, workshop, EUIPO, WIPO, Hague system, EU Trademark Directive, unregistered rights, sporting events, sponsors, whisky
