site.btaJoao Negrao of EU Intellectual Property Office Lauds Bulgaria for Active Cooperation

Bulgaria has been very active in cooperating with the EU Intellectual Property Office (EUIPO), particularly in the last year, EUIPO Boards of Appeal President Joao Negrao said on Tuesday, interviewed by the Bulgarian Patent Office.

Negrao was in Sofia for a workshop on administrative and judicial proceedings in trademarks and designs, held on Monday in close cooperation with EUIPO and Bulgaria's Supreme Administrative Court.

In the interview, he called for raising public awareness of the need for individuals and businesses to protect their trademarks. He explained that if you refrain from paying the standard trademark protection fee of EUR 850 charged by EUIPO, or the national fee established in Bulgaria, it will cost you more, because if someone else uses your trademark, you may lose all your investments. What seems more profitable or less expensive may turn out to be far costlier, the guest said.

Discussing consumer attitudes, Negrao said he has never seen his children in a shop, because they buy everything online. They purchase not only goods but also virtual products such as clothes for their avatars in the metauniverse, but they use real money to pay for that. Today's children are the consumers of the present and the future, Negrao said, noting that consumer patterns are changing. Even the way people use the Internet is changing as cryptocurrencies have become a payment instrument. Everyone concerned should be prepared to protect the trademarks for the products they sell online, he said.