April 08, 2020 European Trade Mark and Design Network

Enhanced e-filing and back office in Latvia

The Patent Office of the Republic of Latvia (Patentu valde), with the support of the EUIPO’s European Cooperation Projects, has enhanced its e-filing portal and back office system, allowing applicants to register various new types of trade marks, in accordance with the EU Trade Mark Directive.

As a result, there are now 11 types of trade marks that can be registered in the Latvian IP office, including non-traditional trade marks, such as holograms and multimedia marks.

The improvements to the back office and e-filing systems, which became available on 2 March 2020, will help modernise IP related operations in Latvia.

The EUIPO and its partners are continuously collaborating to develop innovative online solutions and to also support the transposition of the Directive (2015/2436) to approximate the laws of the Member States relating to trade marks, which aims to modernise the trade mark system within Europe, facilitate cooperation and harmonise legislation among the EU Member States.

These new services come as a result of the work carried out by the EUIPO and its partners under the European Cooperation Projects, in particular the Front Office and Back Office subprojects of the ‘ECP1 Consolidating and Completing the Cooperation Fund Landscape’ project. These subprojects support intellectual property offices in developing more efficient, reliable and user-friendly tools and services for trade marks and designs within the European Union Intellectual Property Network (EUIPN).

“We clearly need strong public health responses to protect life during the pandemic. But we can protect our health and respect human rights. It is not a zero sum game,” says FRA Director Michael O’Flaherty. “The more we respect human rights, the better will be our public health strategies. These strategies must also ensure that any limitations to people’s fundamental rights should only last as long as necessary and that they protect already vulnerable people who may face even greater risks from COVID-19.”

The FRA report ‘Coronavirus pandemic in the EU: Fundamental Rights Implications’ looks at the measures EU Member States use to address the pandemic to highlight rights-respectful approaches that other Member States can learn from.

It focuses on four issues underlining the need to carefully and regularly assess the impact on people’s fundamental rights as governments react to the ever-developing pandemic:

1. Daily life: Government responses have had a wide-ranging impact on fundamental rights, such as the rights to freedom of movement and of assembly, as well as rights relating to work, health and education.

• Social and physical distancing measures – While countries ordered at different times and with varying intensity such measures, they should not lead to social isolation.

2. Vulnerable groups: some people are more vulnerable than others, for example the elderly and children, people with pre-existing medical conditions, Roma, refugees, homeless people, prisoners, people in institutions.

• Greater protection – EU countries should protect but not isolate people in institutional settings, such as nursing homes, prisons or refugee centres. They should develop targeted measures to address the specific needs of other vulnerable groups such as shelters for victims of domestic violence and accessible healthcare information to those who regular messaging may not reach.

3. Racism: The COVID-19 pandemic triggered an increase in racist and xenophobic attacks particularly against people of perceived Asian background.

• Reporting – EU countries should closely monitor racist and xenophobic incidents and effectively report, investigate and prosecute such crimes.

4. Disinformation and data protection: Almost all EU countries face disinformation on the pandemic. Many collect data to help curb the spread of the virus.

• Ensure data protection – EU countries should stay vigilant and ensure they implement all data protection safeguards when protecting health.

This is the first in a series of three monthly reports on the impact of the Coronavirus disease (COVID-19) across the 27 EU Member States. It looks at the impact of government measures in place in February and March on people’s fundamental rights.

For more, please contact: media@fra.europa.eu / Tel.: +43 1 580 30 642

The outbreak of the coronavirus is affecting all countries and member states and the EU are determined to tackle it together. This support is not only in the form of donations of essential medical equipment such as masks and ventilators. Countries are also taking in critically ill patients from other parts of the EU and helping to repatriate EU citizens who have been left stranded abroad.

Everyone, regardless of the country’s size, is pitching in. While France has donated masks and Germany has delivered medical equipment to Italy, Luxembourg has been taking in intensive care patients from France and the Czech Republic has donated protective suits to Italy and Spain.

Countries are also pooling resources to bring stranded Europeans back home. Since the start of the outbreak, thousands of EU citizens have been brought back. One in three passengers is not from the EU country organising the flight. Many more flights are being organised with more seats being made available to other EU nationals.

Meanwhile the EU is funding research into treatments and a vaccine, organising joint purchases of essential equipment, as well as making €37 billion available to EU countries to fight the virus and much more.

Today’s updates include DVC data and calculations for the period 1 March 2019 to 29 February 2020 as well as updates to already published DVC periods.

The number of new breaches is 46: 37 equities for the 8% cap, applicable to all trading venues, and 9 equities for the 4% cap, that applies to individual trading venues. Trading under the waivers for all new instruments in breach of the DVC thresholds should be suspended from 14 April 2020 to 13 October 2020. The instruments for which caps already existed from previous periods will continue to be suspended.

In addition, ESMA highlights that none of the previously identified breaches of the caps proved to be incorrect thus no previously identified suspensions of trading under the waivers had to be lifted.

As of 7 April 2020, there is a total of 352 instruments suspended.

Please be aware that ESMA does not update DVC files older than 6 months.

Background

MiFID II introduced the DVC to limit the amount of dark trading in equities allowed under the reference price waiver and the negotiated transaction waiver. The DVC is calculated per instrument (ISIN) based on the rolling average of trading in that instrument over the last 12 months.