Included in the 2nd EU-Macao Co-operation Programme in the Legal Field, begins tomorrow Tuesday, July 6, at 9:30am, in the World Trade Center’s Lotus Room, the workshop “The Role of Intellectual Property Rights in Enhancing the Competitiveness of SMEs – Understanding Franchising”. Organized by the Economic Services, this workshop will have as its guest speaker Mr. Giovanni Francesco Casucci, who graduated in law from the University of Perugia, Italy, and is founder of the Casucci Law Firm, a law firm specialized in the area of intellectual property rights. This workshop will take place during two days and will be conducted in English, with simultaneous translation into Cantonese. Its main objective is to allow Macao business firms to understand the intellectual property protection in franchise agreement in vis-à-vis the characteristics of the Macao market, and increase awareness on the protection of rights, and boost the competitiveness between business firms by means of strengthening the use of the management ability of intellectual property rights. With an enrolment of nearly a hundred participants, the sessions of this workshop will approach the following subjects: what is franchising and its characteristics, role and protection of various IPs in franchising, IP protection in franchise agreement and key IP issues for franchisee and franchisor and EU cases on IP right protection in franchising. The 2nd EU-Macao Co-operation Programme in the Legal Field, extending until December 2012, which embodies the said workshop, has the “Consolidation of the Macao Legal System” as its main objective. The total budget for the programme is 1.500.000 euros (approximately 15.000.000 patacas), this programme is co-financed by the European Union and the Macao Foundation, with the remaining costs supported by the MSAR’s budget. The implementation of this Co-operation Programme is co-ordinated by the International Law Office (GADI), with participation of several other MSAR’s entities and public departments, namely, the Legal and Judicial Training Centre (CFJJ), the Legal Affairs Bureau (DSAJ), the Economic Services (DSE), the Financial Services Bureau (DSF) and the Institute of European Studies of Macau (IEEM).
