On 28 February 2023 the municipality of Liepāja became the first certified Latvian ‘Authenticity‘.
During the kickoff media event the Memorandum of Understanding was signed between the Director of the Latvian Patent Office, Agris Batalauskis, and the Chairman of the City Council of Liepaja, Gunārs Ansiņš.
The event was the first in a series of IP-related, awareness-raising activities that will take place locally over the next two years in the newly certified Authenticity.
Liepājas is a city in western Latvia, located on the Baltic Sea. It is the largest city in the Kurzeme Region and the third-largest city in the country after Riga and Daugavpils. It is also an important warm-water port. Furthermore, Liepāja has been chosen for the European Capital of Culture in 2027.
The Authenticities Project
This EUIPO project aims to raise awareness, among local policymakers, businesses, and the European public, of both the value of IP and the damaging effects of counterfeiting in European cities. In that sense, Liepāja will also be joining the other 11 certified Authenticities, Thessaloniki, Mykonos and Corfu, in Greece, Sofia (certification expired), Plovdiv (certification expired), Targovishte and Burgas in Bulgaria, Banská Bystrica in Slovakia, Madrid and Zaragoza in Spain and Lisbon in Portugal, in the task of further building a European network of certified Authenticities, where best practices can be shared and new synergies created.
