Trademark Holders Association was created in Chisinau

The Trademarks Holders Association (ADM) was constituted in Chisinau. It aims at strengthening all the holders of trade marks and active participation at the development of an efficient security system of the intellectual property. The Association is created by a group of trade mark holders, which are registered at the Intellectual Property Agency (AGEPI). The councilors in the field of intellectual property, Mihai Barsan declared on Tuesday, October 17 at a press conference that ADM will respond to the concern of the national and international community regarding the negative social effect of counterfeit and piracy, phenomenon which is widespread in Moldova lately. According to him, the association will organize the active participation to the national and international exhibitions, at contests regarding the promotion of trademarks. The jurist Petru Munteanu, declared that the association aims at promoting Moldovan trademarks and to protect the holders of trademarks of unfair competition. According to him, many cases of illegally using trademarks are examined in Courts. According to the director of ADM, Maria Poiata, the Association is not non-political. One of the projects of the organization is creating a Union with a similar association which is created now in Romania. The Director General of the State Agency for Intellectual Property, Stefan Novac has previously declared that the trademark is an object of intellectual property and in order to function normally, this economic instrument needs not only a office that registers trademarks, but a whole security system for the intellectual property “which means that there must be policemen and judges who are competent in this field, and last but not the least is a culture and a which to create and register trademarks”. Registering trademarks at AGEPI costs now USD 40, both for local and foreign producers. At the same time, the majority of small and medium Moldovan enterprises, benefit from 50% cut downs when registering trademarks. These cut downs are stipulated for the enterprises having less than 250 employees and with a turnover of MDL 8 mln. The AGEPI data show that in the first months of 2006, Moldovan producers submitted 1043 requests for trademark registering, and the foreign enterprises – 546 requests. Since 1992 until now, AGEPI registered about 30 thousand trademarks, the average annual figure being of 3 thousand trademarks.