Sakpatenti will take over coordination of CEBS Group at WIPO in 2021–Mr. Mindia Davitadze and Mr. Daren Tang discussed the Plan of Cooperation for the Next Year

Increasing Georgian representation at WIPO and the issue of the coordination of the Central European and Baltic States Group (CEBS) in 2021 was the central topic of the meeting of Mr. Daren Tang, Director General of the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO), and Mr. Mindia Davitadze, Chairman of the National Intellectual Property Centre of Georgia Sakpatenti, that was held in the remote mode on December 8, 2020.

During the meeting, the heads of the offices summarized the results of the activities implemented in 2020 with the WIPO support and discussed the action plan for 2021. The projects implemented with the support of WIPO have facilitated the capacity building and deepening of the knowledge of Georgian experts in the intellectual property field, and the future projects will also serve achieving this objective.

Among the issues discussed at the meeting was the active cooperation between the WIPO Department for Transition and Developed Countries (TDC) and Sakpatenti. Attention was focused on the WIPO role in the formation of the global intellectual property ecosystem, which ensures taking into consideration necessities of all interested countries, this being especially significant for developing and least developed countries. In addition, the discussion touched upon the distance learning program, jointly implemented by the Offices in the Georgian language, “The General Course on Intellectual Property” (DL101 GE)”. The successful implementation of the above-mentioned project laid the foundation for starting work on adaptation of one more program of the WIPO Academy in the Georgian language. This will be the “Advanced Course on Trademarks, Industrial Designs and Geographical Indications”.

WIPO was established in 1967, as the global forum for intellectual property services, policy, information and cooperation between national offices. From 1974 it became a self-funding specialized agency of the United Nations, uniting at present 193 member states. Georgia is the WIPO member state from 1991 and the country is represented at the Organization by the National Intellectual Property Centre of Georgia Sakpatenti.