SINGAPORE, 11 December 2014 - The ASEAN Member States continue to move forward with their initiative to accede to the Madrid Protocol by the end of 2015 as part of the ASEAN Economic Community-building. To continue to prepare and assist the ASEAN Member States to accede to and implement the Protocol, advanced training on Madrid Protocol operations was organised on 9-11 December in Singapore.

Simple, cost-effective mechanisms for protecting intellectual property (IP) in the region enhance ASEAN competitiveness by giving businesses confidence that their valuable intellectual assets will be protected if they invest and trade across borders.

With the Madrid Protocol, the ASEAN region will make it easier for trademark owners to do business by allowing them to file a single application in one of the accepted languages directly with his or her own national trademark office and use the application to seek protection in ASEAN and other important markets.

This training is among the series of activities under the Accession to Madrid Protocol Project Phase II, which shifted its focus from awareness-raising to laying down the groundwork that would allow participating countries to build the necessary structures to enable them to operate Madrid Protocol efficiently. Leveraging on outcomes of Phase 1, the second phase makes use of the recommendations and accession plans to customize implementation work plans for the operationalization of Madrid Protocol in the participating countries.

The Madrid Protocol is an international trademark treaty administered by WIPO. To date, Philippines, Singapore and Viet Nam have acceded to the protocol. Other ASEAN Member States are in various stages of their accession.

The training was implemented under the auspices of the ASEAN-Australia-New Zealand Free Trade Area (AANZFTA) Economic Cooperation Support Programme (AECSP) and jointly organized with the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) and the EU-ASEAN Project on the Protection of Intellectual Property Rights (ECAP III).

Read also: http://www.asean.org/making-international-brand-protection-easier-for-asean-businesses

For more information, please visit http://www.aseanip.org/and https://aanzfta.asean.org.

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