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Romanian Intellectual Property: Walking Up the Road to Sustained Growth

Romanian Intellectual Property: Walking Up the Road to Sustained Growth

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Despite the financial hardship and the challenges that have arisen during the recent financial crisis, Romania has managed to turn into a regional business hub for Southeast Europe (SEE), rapidly transitioning from an early stage to a growth stage.

Intellectual Property (IP) could not be left behind, since it belongs among the foundations of modern economic growth, constantly facing new challenges that need to be addressed and always serving as an excellent platform for enhancing financial performance and exploring new routes to financial development.

OSIM, the Romanian State Office for Inventions and Trademarks, has reached a high standard of organization, serving the needs of IP owners in structures similar to European institutions, on the basis of the EU harmonized legal framework. Therefore, it should come as no surprise that foreign IP owners closely monitor the Romanian registries and take quick action against infringers. Solid IP institutions implementing sound policies are designed to serve IP, and IP proprietors are following all available procedures to secure their rights in an emerging-economy jurisdiction of great interest for trade players coming both from the West and the East – especially Russia and China.

What is more, IP-intensive industries – through the promotion of creativity and innovation – continue to create opportunities which Romania has been constantly benefiting from. Romanian universities have gradually evolved into centers of innovation, and the startup ecosystem is making decent efforts to adjust to the globalized economy and secure funding opportunities. Besides, Romania is considered to be one of the fastest-growing information technology (IT) markets in the SEE area: numbering over 100,000 certified IT professionals, Romania has managed to rank itself first among European countries and sixth worldwide. Therefore, it comes as an urgent necessity that more incentives be given to this sector, so that Romania is able to take advantage of the favorable financial timing and catch the wave of EU-funded projects that are currently running, promising to expedite the integration of Romanian R&D activities into European networks.

From a geostrategic point of view, Romania is at a crossroads for counterfeit and pirated goods, with the respective manufacturing centers expanding from the East to EU and non-EU Eastern European countries such as Moldova and Belarus. More precisely, the Constantza port is a point of high interest, and there is an urgent need to strictly monitor and report counterfeiting activities, especially following the recent EU law amendments addressing counterfeits in transit to non-EU countries. Moreover, Romania is positioned on the way from Turkey and Bulgaria to the north, forming a cordon around the Black Sea, a thriving corridor of international trade, but also a route for IP infringement activity. This is the main reason that Romania is listed both as a potential producer and/or transit point in trade with counterfeit goods for the EU (OECD/EUIPO (2016), Trade in Counterfeit and Pirated Goods: Mapping the Economic Impact, OECD Publishing, Paris), and is among the nine Member States with the highest impact of counterfeiting in clothing, footwear, and accessories (as evidenced by the 2015 EUIPO report on “The Economic Cost of IPR Infringement in the Clothing, Footwear and Accessories Sector”). 

Romania fares well in terms of interagency cooperation, where a wide range of enforcement agencies appear to be highly competent in addressing the anti-counterfeiting issue, while the Romanian Public Ministry is in charge of implementing the action plan for the Romanian Strategy in the Intellectual Property Rights field and for coordinating public authorities, a structure that beacons the will of Romania to struggle against counterfeits and piracy.

 

Taking all this into account, a snapshot of the situation in IP in Romania would reveal a country with a growing economy which values intangible rights and has been successfully keeping up with EU developments in the field. Romania is dealing efficiently with the challenges appearing before it, justifying a future listing as an IP-driven country.

By Michalis Kosmopoulos, Partner, Drakopoulos

This Article was originally published in Issue 3.4 of the CEE Legal Matters Magazine. If you would like to receive a hard copy of the magazine, you can subscribe here.

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