ACG invited to key EU Observatory meetings

Phil Lewis, ACG Strategy Advisor was invited by the EU Observatory to attend a number of working group meetings and a design award ceremony w/c 28 November 2016.

The meetings focused on: enforcement; economics and statistics; and the Observatory’s strategic performance.     

Enforcement Working Group

At the Enforcement Working Group meeting there was discussion around:

• Europol - who employ a multi-disciplinary, cross border approach to combat organised crime across the EU. Representing: customs; police; enforcement; and enforcement-related authorities such as food standards agencies.
• a best practice online training portal to provide information and guidance for police, customs and prosecutors.
• an initial study on IP infringing online business models.
• a workshop on the impact of Bitcoin.
• A report on the ten major enforcement knowledge building events held since 2012.
• the report by Guardia Di Finanza on its investigation and Follow the Money initiatives that deal with counterfeiting on social media sites.
• A report on the Enforcement Database (EDB) and ongoing developments
• the rollout of ACIST - a database which holds all available EU enforcement statistics.
• ACRIS – a new system developed to collect data and identify trends and problem areas outside the EU.
• Improvements to all online systems, including links with COPIS and WCO.
• data analysis work that has identified storage and destruction costs for private and public enforcers.
• the international IP Enforcement Summit to be held in Berlin on 22/23 June 2017.

Economics and Statistics Working Group

Topics covered by the Economics and Statistics Working Group included:

• a study to identify the value of film industry works in the public domain.
• a study covering companies and sectors that rely on trade secrets; why they use them and what factors drive their use.
• a scoreboard and survey to understand the way SMEs act in relation to IP.  For example, do SMEs that register their IP rights have as strong an economic profile as those that don’t?
• plans to extend the work carried out by the OECD and EUIPO on global impact of counterfeiting.
• results of the report on movie piracy and displacement.
• the methodology developed to compare the of value companies’ brands and IPR assets, such as trademarks.
• updates on infringement quantification studies in specific sectors which have proven impacts such as; reduced sales of legitimate goods, reduced tax revenues, lower employment and increased costs for enforcement.
• interim results of the updated, joint, EUIPO- EPO project measuring  on how IP contributes to GDP, employment salaries and trade.

EU Observatory’s strategic performance

This open session reviewed the Observatory’s overall progress against its strategy and action plan and gave working group members an opportunity to gain insight into the activities of other working groups.

The main influence of the Observatory is to look at innovative ways of assessing the impact of IP infringements. Stakeholders and policy makers have benefited from this work. Stronger relationships have been built and new high-level Commission officials are now taking counterfeiting and piracy more seriously.

On 5 December the EU Observatory Christmas shopping campaign was launched. It utilises all Observatory studies and will use all communication channels including; media, specialised press, news agencies and social media.

EUROPA Design Awards 2016

The DesignEuropa Awards celebrate excellence in design and design management from Registered Community Design (RCD) holders.

Flap a sound-absorbing panel designed by Alberto and Francesco Meda, won the Small and Emerging Companies category.

The Industry category was won by the Thule Urban Glide jogging stroller, designed by Thule with support from Veryday Design.

At the ceremony, a Lifetime Achievement Award was also presented to the legendary designer Giorgetto Giugiaro.

If you are an ACG Member you can click here to read Phil’s detailed report.