The Independent Uganda: You get the Truth we Pay the Price
KAMPALA, UGANDA | THE INDEPENDENT | Uganda’s intellectual property owners can now be viewed by millions of searchers worldwide, following the addition to the TMview trademark search tool of the European Union.
The Uganda Registration Services Bureau (URSB) has officially joined the EU Intellectual Property Office (EUIPO) trademark search tool, contributing an impressive 79,000 trademarks.
The global database currently has more than 129 million records (registered trademarks).
“This remarkable initiative enhances the transparency of intellectual property registrations in addition to fostering a vibrant culture of Innovation,” says URSB.
This makes URSB’s trademark data available in the EU search tool which now provides information and access to over 129 million trademarks from 79 participating offices.
Since TMview’s launch on April 13, 2010, the tool has been used for 142 million searches from users worldwide, with those from Germany, Italy, Spain, the United Kingdom and the United States being among the most frequent visitors.
EUIPO pioneered the provision of free quality data to promote market openness and transparency.
The Integration of URSB trademarks data in TMview is a concrete result of the EUIPO’s collaboration efforts in Africa through the EU-funded cooperation project, the Intellectual Property Rights and Innovation in Africa (AfrIPI).
It is also part of URSB’s efforts to enhance access to relevant information related to registration of intellectual property rights to drive innovation.
TMview is a free of charge Internet tool allowing users to search the different databases for existing trade marks held in major Intellectual Property Offices.
It is multilingual and designed to be easy-to-use, and provides access to trade mark applications and registrations of the participating official trade mark offices in a single place.
It includes trade marks of many countries outside Europe, such as the USA and Russia and now Uganda, while the number of offices in the service is constantly growing.
The database is a convenient way to examine whether one’s trademark is “taken” in any other countries or not.
The information can be accessed via www.tmview.org.
The development should help Uganda’s growing number of innovators, but who have lost their innovations in different ways to both local and international individuals and companies.
*****
URN
