IP Module is the ninth module of the Programme, and as the other modules it was implemented by ACI Partners, a leading Moldovan Law firm, Wolf Theiss, a leading Central and South East European law firm, and National Institute of Justice.
The combined IP training team comprised of Mr. Vojtěch Chloupek, Mgr. BcA MJur (Oxon), Czech Bar Association member, Counsel, Bird & Bird Prague, Mrs. Domnica Manole, Judge of the Chisinau Court of Appeals and Mr. Andrei Caciurenco, LLM, Certified IP Counselor, ACI Partners, Legal Partner.
The training was organized in two days session for judges from both the Appeal Court and trial courts. It was an interactive discussion on hot topics of IP law generously seasoned with practical case studies and active knowledge sharing.
It was noted during the training that some aspects of IP law are rather new for the Moldovan judicial corpus, while in others an extensive case-law has already been accumulated. Even absent the new guiding instructions of the Plenum of the Moldovan Supreme Court, the judges of the Chisinau Appeal Court felt rather confident in dealing with such areas as Trademarks and Copyrights. It should be reminded that starting from 2008 Republic of Moldova has renewed its IP legislation in a dramatic way. Every piece of major IP legislation has been adopted as a new law in line with European regulations and international standards.
At the same time, such areas as IP rights in Internet, certain aspects of Patent Law and interaction between various Collective Management Organizations raised a vivid interest since presented some novelties for the Moldovan legal practice and reality.
Mrs. Domica Manoli, being a reporting judge for this training, has dealt extensively with the annulment of trademarks. Moldovan case-law is dominated by trademark disputes and the judges have a rather good experience in this area. The second largest group of disputes in Moldovan courts is copyright cases. Mr. Vojtěch Chloupek has introduced to the audience the particularities of the EU regulations in Intellectual Propery. Judges were interested with his experience as Patent Attorney, since Patents is a very technical area. Mr. Chloupek has also covered every major IP domain from the EU law perspective, including trademarks, industrial design, patents, copyright and procedural aspects of IP rights protection.
Mr. Andrei Caciurenco, heading the IP Service Line at ACI Partners presented the Moldovan law aspects of almost all the IP objects. The discussion was rather interactive and upon request of the judges, ACI IP counsellor, has specifically dealt with protection of IP rights in the Internet media. He has also presented the case studies on bad faith registration of a trademark in Moldova, disputes between Collective Management Organisations, liability of a Moldovan hosting company for copyright infringement by its clients/websites, one of the few Moldovan cases related to Industrial Designs and a number of Patent cases.
A specific interest of the judges was with bad faith registration of trademarks. The Moldovan Supreme Court has decided on a number of landmark cases on bad faith trademarks setting guiding standards for different factual circumstances of such cases. It is notable that the Supreme Court has referred to the jurisprudence of the European Court of Justice (Chokoladefabriken Lindt & Sprungli AG vs Franz Hauswirth GmbH) and has set clear criteria required for establishing existence of a bad faith registration.
The experts have also covered such novelties as means of securing court action in IP cases and technological protection measures & rights management information.
As a result of the training the participating judges have highly appreciated the course materials and presentations of the experts.
For more information on IP law and how your IP interests could be protected in Moldova please contact ACI Partners IP Service Line.
