• An overview of the convergence projects (CP) on Designs, that in brief aim at shaping common practices in areas where there is divergence and where there is consensus among offices and users to eliminate them. This kind of convergence should be achievable without the need for legislative changes and at present comprises the definition of common practices regarding “graphic representation of a design” (CP6) as well as the “harmonisation of product indications“ (CP7). Both projects will be promoted in the coming two years;
• A presentation of recent European and national case law related to designs;
• A progress report and brief presentation of the latest tools of the Cooperation Fund; and
• Two workshops with the goal to gather information from the national offices with respect to their practices related to the restitutio in integrum and to the “identification of products and classifications“.

Draft Guidelines
Furthermore the representatives of the German and UK offices provided an interesting update about their changed national design laws that recently entered into force. Another major topic was the draft of the Guidelines regarding the examination of design invalidity applications. This document addresses both procedural and substantive issues:

• RCD invalidity proceedings should be aligned with the established practice regarding CTM (opposition and cancellation);
• The RCD invalidity Manual should be aligned with the identified trends of the Board of Appeal’s case law for internal convergence purposes.

MARQUES had submitted a position paper back in September 2013 concerning the draft and we could embrace the opportunity during the Liaison Meeting to discuss our submission with the person in charge. The results of the first working cycle concerning these Guidelines were adopted by the President of the Office on 4th December 2013 and will come into force on 2nd February 2014.

Apart from the various exchanges with some leading practitioners in the field of European design, it was important to make the users’ voice heard during the Meeting and our participation proved thus very fruitful. It has been favourably taken note of - and is highly appreciated - how much weight OHIM is attributing to user organisations, such as MARQUES, to integrate users into OHIM practices.

By Robert M Stutz, a lawyer with Beutler Künzi Stutz AG in Berne and vice-chair of the MARQUES Designs Team