One of our Directors, Ken McInnes, is on the Publication Committee of ECTA (the European Trade Mark Committee Association for those who are unfamiliar) and recently attended the 7TH ECTA SUPERVISORY BOARD AND COMMITTEE MEETINGS on 12 October 2022 in beautiful Ljubljana, Slovenia. Ken is fortunate to spend time living in both Sydney, Australia and Madrid, Spain each year, so is well placed to be an active member and participant in ECTA.
With more than 1500 members, coming from all Member States of the EU and beyond, ECTA promotes the knowledge and professionalism of the intellectual property law community in the fields of trade marks, designs, copyright and other intellectual property rights, within the European Union.
In these fields, we are a recognised discussion partner for the most important public and political bodies: we work hand in hand with EU Institutions, EUIPO, WIPO and other national and international organisations. Yearly official meetings with the European Commission, EUIPO and WIPO allow us to maintain a strong influence on the developments impacting our members. With our members, we influence the future of intellectual property rights policy and regulation.
ECTA, founded in 1980 now has 40 years’ experience in promoting its members’ knowledge and professionalism. For a long time known as the ‘European Communities Trade Mark Association’, ECTA was the primary non-governmental professional association involved in the introduction of the European Union’s Community trade mark system in 1996 and has remained actively involved in the refinement and improvement of this highly successful unitary trade mark system. This has been beneficial to ECTA members, many of whom have been actively involved in promoting, positively influencing and bringing about important changes in the fields of intellectual property in Europe.