EUIPO unveils five-year strategy focused on providing high-quality IP services while fostering competitiveness, innovation, and economic growth in Europe

• The plan, adopted at the EUIPO’s Management Board and Budget Committee meetings, will come into effect on 1 January 2025
• One of the priorities is to enhance the customer experience by delivering high-value IP products and services while further improving predictability, consistency, and legal certainty
• A number of initiatives rely on the use of technology, especially AI, to optimize operational efficiency and effectiveness.

The European Union Intellectual Property Office (EUIPO) published today its Strategic Plan 2030, outlining its vision for intellectual property (IP) and the Office’s priorities for the next five years.

Taking effect on 1 January 2025, the plan will guide the EUIPO’s activities from 2025-2030, aiming to build a ‘robust, inclusive and sustainable IP ecosystem.’

The plan was adopted yesterday by the EUIPO’s Management Board and Budget Committee. It is the result of over 2,000 responses to a consultation of staff, citizens, public institutions, user associations, and other stakeholders in the field of IP or related to the EU agency.

The plan also puts forward the vision of João Negrão, Executive Director of the EUIPO, who commented: “Our Strategic Plan is designed to ensure that the EUIPO delivers high-value IP services to citizens and businesses in an efficient and effective manner, contributing to fostering innovation, competitiveness, and economic growth in Europe.”

In this regard, the Strategic Plan 2030 presents a revised vision for the EUIPO to ensure a robust, inclusive, diverse, and sustainable IP ecosystem that works for all. Through the plan, the Office will focus on offering consistent and coherent services and solutions to support citizens and businesses seeking to protect the results of their investments in innovation, as well as initiatives that contribute to fostering innovation, competitiveness, and economic growth in Europe.

A roadmap for 2030

The EUIPO provides IP services directly to industry and coexists alongside the EU’s national and regional IP offices, providing a two-tier protection system. Within this context, the Strategic Plan 2030 is built around two strategic drivers that will guide the EUIPO’s work: internally, becoming a modern, high-performing, and resilient organization and externally, establishing effective cooperation for quality IP services to citizens and businesses.

The EUIPO will pursue five strategic goals from 2025-2030:

• Optimizing operational efficiency and effectiveness toward long-term sustainable excellence,
• Enhancing the value of IP products and services by expanding quality, consistency, and legal certainty,
• Improving access to the IP system,
• Building trust and respect for IP and
• Ensuring the long-term sustainability of the European Union Intellectual Property Network (EUIPN).

To deliver on its goals, the EUIPO plan identifies six ‘priority impact areas’, which affect customers, entrepreneurs, innovators, other IP offices, and society at large:

1.    Customer and quality: Enhance customer experience by delivering innovative IP products and services in a timely manner using artificial intelligence (AI) to improve predictability and consistency and expand alternative methods for solving disputes.

2.    Awareness and education: Support a greater understanding of IP matters in Europe and beyond, enhancing IP in education, raising awareness and promoting the use of the design and geographical indication systems, and establishing dedicated IPR helpdesks in Europe.

3.    Promotion of innovation: Foster value creation by making the IP system more accessible to innovators and creators, providing effective support to businesses, establishing a widely accepted IP valuation methodology, and creating a European IP platform bringing together SMEs and capital providers.

4.    Inclusive IP landscape in Europe: Ensure accessibility to the EU IP system, implementing the new legal frameworks on design and geographical indications (GIs), establishing the EUIPO ‘Copyright Knowledge Centre,’ enhancing copyright support services, and developing target programs to increase the participation of underrepresented groups in the IP system.

5.    Enforcement of IP: Build trust and respect for IP rights by supporting, for instance, IP rights owners to combat infringement, ensuring fair online commerce, and leveraging technology for enforcement.

6.    IP alliances: Transform the EUIPN network into a community by fostering cooperation among IP offices and like-minded organizations, serving as the basis for an ‘IP Alliance’ to support businesses in addressing global challenges. The IP Alliance will aim to provide a consistent user experience, joint exploration, applying emerging technologies, promoting green best practices, expanding cooperation to new areas, and supporting the implementation of EU policies in third countries and EU candidate countries.

The strategy highlights the integration of new technologies, such as AI and blockchain. The EUIPO will invest in technology to improve its services and provide new tools and resources for IP users. In addition, the EUIPO will work closely with its partners to streamline registration and IP protection while promoting the use of IP rights as a tool for innovation and growth.

The plan also emphasizes the importance of promoting IP awareness and education, particularly among SMEs, young people, and women. The EUIPO will launch new initiatives and programs to improve IP literacy and expand access to IP rights for these underrepresented groups.

The EUIPO’s strategy also underlines the importance of promoting sustainability and environmental responsibility in the IP ecosystem. The Alicante-based office will work to reduce its carbon footprint and promote environmentally friendly practices while encouraging IP users to do the same.

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