The agreement was signed at WIPO headquarters by Abdelaziz Babqiqi, Director General of the Moroccan Office for Industrial and Commercial Property (OMPIC), and Ofir Alon, Executive Director of the “Israel Patent Office” (Ministry of Justice), in the presence of Daren Tang, Director General of WIPO.
The joint signing ceremony, chaired by Ambassador Permanent Representative of Morocco in Geneva, Omar Zniber, and Ambassador Permanent Representative of Israel in Geneva, Meirav Eilon Shahar, took place in the presence of numerous Heads of diplomatic missions and personalities from international Geneva.
The objective of this memorandum of understanding is to provide mechanisms to promote cooperation in the field of industrial property protection and thus stimulate innovation and strengthen entrepreneurial relations between innovators of the two countries.
The Memorandum, concluded for a period of 5 years tacitly renewable for the same period, also aims to develop the exchange of knowledge and the sharing of information between the two national intellectual property offices and to provide assistance to small and medium-sized enterprises. in the field of industrial property protection.
“Morocco is committed to building a strong intellectual property ecosystem with the conviction that intellectual property plays a central role in economic, social and technological development, especially in these difficult circumstances”, declared, on this occasion, Abdelaziz Babqiqi.
He noted that the Kingdom recently adopted a new 2022-2026 strategy to strengthen the intellectual property system in Morocco, in order to support the innovation ecosystem and better align with the Sustainable Development Goals.
Meirav Eilon Shahar stressed, for his part, that this agreement will allow entrepreneurs and innovators to “build a more prosperous and sustainable future for future generations in Israel and Morocco”.
“We appreciate this bilateral cooperation and will endeavor to extend it to the whole multilateral scene from Geneva,” she said.
For his part, Omar Zniber affirmed that “the State of Israel and the Kingdom are today taking a historic step together in the framework of the activity and prospects of the PMOI, relying on the relaunch of our bilateral relations.
This memorandum of understanding, he said, is testimony to our desire to develop our cooperation and partnership in innovation, creativity and high technology, targeting fundamental areas for Israel and Morocco, such as water governance, agriculture, science, technology and competitiveness.