During the kick-off media event the Memorandum of Understanding was signed between the President of the Directive Council of INPI PT, Mrs Ana Bandeira, the Mayor of Lisbon, Mr Carlos Moedas and the Minister of Justice, Mrs Catarina Sarmento e Castro.

The event was the first in a series of IP-related, awareness-raising activities that will take place locally over the next two years in the newly certified Authenticity.

The Executive Director of the EUIPO, Christian Archambeau, joining the event via recorded video, stated that awareness raising on the importance of IP for businesses and the damage caused by its infringement is crucial for the future growth of all European businesses:

“Through this Authenticities project we insure that consumers seeking out the shops of Lisbon can feel safe in the knowledge that the goods that they are buying are genuine."

He also highlighted recent studies by the EUIPO Observatory that show us that one out of ten consumers in general are misled into buying counterfeit goods and 33% of EU consumers wondered whether the product that they bought was original or not.

The Authenticities Project

This EUIPO project aims to raise awareness, among local policymakers, businesses, and the European public, of both the value of IP and the damaging effects of counterfeiting in European cities. In that sense, Lisbon will also be joining the other six certified Authenticities (Thessaloniki, Sofia, Plovdiv, Banska Bystrika, Mykonos and Madrid) in the task of further building a European network of certified Authenticities, where best practices can be shared and new synergies created.

Article first published here.