On 15 October the Spanish Patent and Trademark Office (SPTO), with support from the EUIPO’s European cooperation projects, completed its technical stack upgrade of the designs front office system. This followed a set of improvements to the back office system on 10 October.

The technical stack upgrade was designed to increase the security, performance and efficiency of the front office system used at the SPTO. As from now, general system maintenance will be simpler and users will experience reduced response times and improved data validation.

The back office improvements, meanwhile, will automate some parts of the examination process, which will reduce potential delays and avoid manual data entry errors.

This release also included the proof of use functionality, which was required in order to comply with the new trade mark regulations related to opposition to designs that are based in a trade mark.

The upgrade was carried out within the framework of the European cooperation projects, which aim to benefit users across the EU by providing modern, state-of-the-art tools and services for the European IP offices.