The State Agency on Intellectual Property (AGEPI) jointly with the Chamber of Commerce and Industry of the Republic of Moldova launched today, February 10, 2021, the Contest “Trademark of the Year 2020”, during a press conference. This contest is also organized in partnership with the National Anticorruption Center within the UNDP Moldova Project “Fighting Corruption by Strengthening Integrity in the Republic of Moldova”.

The conference was attended by Viorel Iustin, Director General of AGEPI and Mihai Bilba, Vice President of CCI.

Mihai Bilba presented the format of the contest, now in its 18th edition, and reviewed the previous editions.

Viorel Iustin mentioned during the conference that the trademark is an important tool for customer promotion, attraction and loyalty.

“AGEPI invests resources and a lot of effort in promoting the intellectual property system, with priority given to increasing the degree of culture, increasing the level of knowledge and developing the skills of citizens and the business environment, in order to efficiently manage IP assets, and the Contest “Trademark of the Year” is a real platform for communication and promotion of these goals.

It is gratifying that, from year to year, economic agents show an increasingly growing interest in participating in the Contest “Trademark of the Year”, and also the desire to get recognition for its performance. Thus, AGEPI together with CCI invites economic agents to participate in the contest “Trademark of the year 2020”,” said the Director General of AGEPI.

The current edition of the contest has a total of 15 nominations and 14 categories, including 2 new nominations: “Online Business” and “Family Business”. The contest is open to enterprises and organizations with various forms of ownership, legal entities registered in the Republic of Moldova, as well as natural persons who produce material goods and/or provide services in the country. Only trademarks (national and foreign) which at the time of submitting the application for participation are registered and valid on the territory of the Republic of Moldova are admitted to the contest, according to the legislation in force.

The Contest “Trademark of the Year” is in its eighteenth edition and is one of the most effective tools to increase the competitiveness and increase the capacity of domestic enterprises in creating and promoting trademarks in the internal and external market through qualitative evaluation thereof by a professional jury, and also on the basis of consumer opinion.

In total, during the 17 editions, more than 1500 trademarks participated in the contest.

Also, during the press conference, the Chamber of Commerce and Industry of the Republic of Moldova launched the Contest “Quality Award”, which is in its 7th edition.

Mihai Bilba, Vice President of CCI, stated that: “This is the first and only contest dedicated to quality management and is considered a stage of preparation of the enterprise for the promotion of products on the foreign market. The application of excellence criteria for self-assessment allows participants to obtain an external image of its activity, to assess the extent to which the enterprise’s activity meets the needs of consumers, staff, suppliers, society and to determine strategic development objectives.”

The objectivity of designating the winners of both contests is ensured by the qualitative evaluation by a professional jury, and also following a survey conducted among consumers. The awarding of prizes to the winners will take place during the traditional Moldovan Business Gala ceremony, which will take place in the period May-June 2021.

Interested companies can send the participation forms until March 31, 2021, to the e-mail addresses: diana.lungu@chamber.md, tatiana.ranga@chamber.md. The contest rules, the participation forms and the rest of the necessary materials can be found on the websites of the CCI of the Republic of Moldova and of AGEPI.