ECTA Autumn Meeting 2020 has just ended and, although we haven’t been able to meet in person this time, we would like to thank you once again for your support and active participation during all the meetings and initiatives of last week.

• VIRTUAL COMMITTEE AND SUPERVISORY/COUNCIL MEETING

From 19 to 23 October, we have had fruitful ECTA Committee Meetings, where our Leaders and Committee members discussed and finalised projects, analysed case law, debated on recent IP developments, tools, practices and brainstormed on the new areas and topics of interest for new projects. Also, our newly created Data Committee and International Trade Committee have met for the first time. We wish their Leaders and Committee members a lot of useful exchanges, sharing of experience and many fruitful projects in the years to come!
On 21 and 22 October, we have also held the Supervisory Board/Council Meetings with an in-depth discussion about strategic items, current topics and next steps of our Association.

• ECTA WEBINARS

ECTA has provided our members and the IP Community with two interesting online offerings:

- User generated brands and social media vocabulary: symbols, expression, and commerce
- Curious about case law

Many participants, members, non-members and students, attended our webinars and gave us very positive feedback about these learning opportunities. We would like to thank our distinguished speakers and moderators - ECTA Committee members, officials from the EU bodies, IP professionals and academics - for sharing with our participants their expertise on these engaging topics.

Don’t forget that other ECTA webinars are planned and registrations will be opened soon:

- ‘IP strategy for trade marks and GIs in connection with the Brexit’ (13 November)
- ‘Is a design reform needed? 3D printing / virtual printing?’ (4 December)

ECTA members can participate at a reduced fee. Upon request, you will receive a certificate of attendance, to request CLE credits from national Bar Associations.

• ECTA IP HOUR

As a pleasant conclusion after a busy week of ECTA meetings, we have organised a social gathering for all ECTA friends. During this event, we congratulated the winners of the ECTA Award 2020, reminisced about key ECTA events and the ECTA family from 1980 onwards and raised the glasses for the 40th birthday of our favourite association.


If you would like to be more active in ECTA and join one of our Committees, remember that General Committee Elections are coming up next January! Don’t miss our updates on this and other ECTA activities by regularly checking the ECTA Website, LinkedIn, Twitter and the ECTA APP (a permanent mobile app containing membership information and all the recent ECTA updates)!

We hope to be back together soon and we THANK YOU once again for your continuous support!