In January 2024, through its National Institute of Industrial Property (INPI), Brazil recognised two new geographical indications (GIs) that highlight the richness of its agricultural heritage. In Mandirituba – a municipality in the state of Paraná – dehydrated camomile obtained the first GI registration of 2024. This recognised indication of origin joins 110 other GIs across the country. Mandirituba is responsible for 30 % of Paraná’s camomile production, as well as driving innovation with broad applications in the food and cosmetics industries.

As of 2 February 2024, the Intellectual Property Office of Viet Nam (IP Viet Nam) has made its industrial designs data available to the DESIGNview search tool.

With IP Viet Nam on board of DESIGNview, the tool now contains data from 76 participating offices.

With the addition of more than 52.295 industrial designs from IP Viet Nam, DESIGNview now provides information and access to more than 21,2 million industrial designs in total.

As of 29 January 2024, the Registry of Intellectual Property of Guatemala (RPI-GT) is part of Design Class and will use and accept the list of terms from the harmonised database of product indications (HDBPI).

Following RPI-GT’s decision to use HDBPI, there are now 18 IP offices outside the European Union (EU) in DesignClass that use and accept the terms from this harmonised database. With this incorporation, the total number of participating IP offices increases to 44.

The National Institute for the Defence of Competition and Protection of Intellectual Property (INDECOPI) granted the eleventh designation of origin (DO) for Peru: ‘Oregano from Tacna’. The certificate of registration ceremony highlighted the national pride that DOs can generate and the contribution they make to the economic reactivation of the region.

The South-East Asia IP SME Helpdesk, an initiative of the European Commission, supports SMEs in the European Union (EU) and the other countries of the Single Market Programme (SMP)* to both protect and enforce their Intellectual Property (IP) rights in or relating to South-East Asian countries, through the provision of free information and services.

IP Key LA and the European Union Intellectual Property Office (EUIPO) have unveiled the Annual Work Plan for 2024. This strategic plan seeks to strengthen collaboration in intellectual property (IP) between the European Union and Latin America.

Scheduled from 1 January to 31 December 2024, the Annual Work Plan (AWP3-2024) comprises 22 activities that strategically designed to impact key IPR areas.

The IP Key SEA project has published the third annual work plan (AWP) for its second phase, comprising 21 activities and covering areas of intellectual property (IP) rights that range from copyright to patents, trade marks and industrial designs, geographical indications (GIs), plant variety rights and trade secrets.