EUIPO executive director interview: make office ‘one-stop shop’

The EUIPO should become a one-stop shop that deals with all types of intellectual property rights – not just Community designs and EU trademarks, the office’s executive director told Managing IP in an in-person interview on Friday, July 8.

Christian Archambeau was speaking to Managing IP during the IP Case Law Conference, which took place at the EUIPO’s Alicante headquarters last week.

Asked for his goals for the coming years, he suggested the office should better reflect its title and branch out to be responsible for rights including standard essential patents and supplementary protection certificates.

The office could also be tasked with dealing with domain name disputes pertaining to .eu country-code top-level-domains and to national TLDs, through an arbitration-style service.

This is a hypothetical scenario, of course, with Archambeau looking several years into the future, but he stressed that the EUIPO should certainly consider an expanded remit.

“We want to become a one-stop shop for all IP rights that stem from or are related to EU legislation. This should include offering advice from before a right is applied for, right through to post registration,” he told Managing IP.

Elsewhere, Archambeau gave an update on the EUIPO’s efforts to increase use of alternative dispute resolution, how to better engage youth in IP matters, the interplay between the EUIPO and judicial authorities, and the office’s wider goals.

The full interview will be published on Managing IP in due course.