RIK connected to the European Union trademark blockchain network

The Center of Registers and Information Systems (RIK) helped to integrate the intellectual property registers of the Estonian Patent Office into the network chain of trademarks and industrial designs of the European Union so that trademark information could be shared with the registers of partner countries quickly and securely through a distributed database.

Estonia is the second country after Malta to introduce a blockchain solution developed by the European Union Intellectual Property Office (EUIPO) as a pilot project. As the central administrator of trademark and design data, EUIPO aims to reduce the risks associated with the central storage of information and to facilitate the dissemination of intellectual property information for members.

In the future, a shared database will allow each country to have a complete set of trademark and design data and to supplement their part. Additions reach other members directly and are automatically authenticated and time-stamped in the block chain. The complete solution makes it impossible to change the records afterwards, which also supports data quality control for the central administrator.

The Center for Registers and Information Systems took six months to implement the solution initiated and funded by EUIPO in the services of the Patent Office. The service is hosted in the cloud.