Intellectual property

The European Commission wishes to make training material available which will be helpful both to legal practitioners for their own use and to the trainers of legal practitioners as a resource for their work in the field of European intellectual property law.

Webinars on intellectual property (OHIM Academy)

Intellectual property (IP) rights are the legal rights which protect creations of the human mind. IP encompasses a wide range of creative areas, such as inventions, designs and different kinds of artistic expression, and is also relevant in other more commercial areas like trademarks and trade secrets.

The OHIM Academy offers a range of webinars in English covering all aspects of intellectual property. The webinars are available for free on the OHIM Academy website.

Online training on European patent law (European Patent Academy)

The European Patent Academy has developed several online courses in English, French and German on patents and on the European patent system. The courses are designed for national patent office staff, patent librarians and anyone else interested in learning about this field. Topics covered include search, classification and opposition.

The online courses are available free of charge on the European Patent Academy's website.

The Library and Training corner of the European Intellectual Property Rights (IPR) Helpdesk

Legal practitioners wishing to extend their knowledge of intellectual property or of intellectual property rights (IPR) are invited to get in touch with the European IPR Helpdesk. Although primarily aimed at beneficiaries of EU‑funded research projects and EU SMEs involved in transnational partnership agreements, the Helpdesk's library and training corner can offer learning resources which may also be helpful to legal practitioners, including bulletins, case studies, fact sheets, answers to frequently asked questions, a glossary, useful documents, training packages, etc. These resources are mainly available in English.

Distance‑learning courses (World Intellectual Property Organization – WIPO)

Although not specific to EU law, WIPO provides useful basic and advanced online training modules covering all aspects of intellectual property. The distance‑learning courses cover intellectual property, copyright, patents, trade marks, etc. They are available in English, French, German, Spanish and Portuguese.

Last update: 19/02/2019

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