EBSI’s Blockchain, the Driving Force Behind the EUIPO’s Groundbreaking Anti-Counterfeiting Initiative
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The EBSI-ELSA (European Blockchain Services Infrastructure – European Product Logistic Service Authentication) initiative, designed with EUIPO, aims to guarantee the authenticity of products by facilitating an easy and reliable verification of information among participants in the supply chain through EBSI’s blockchain technology infrastructure. Developed in 2021, it is now ready to go live.
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The EBSI-ELSA (European Blockchain Services Infrastructure – European Product Logistic Service Authentication) initiative, designed with EUIPO, aims to guarantee the authenticity of products by facilitating an easy and reliable verification of information among participants in the supply chain through EBSI’s blockchain technology infrastructure. Developed in 2021, it is now ready to go live.
On 20 June 2024, EUIPO (European Union Intellectual Property Office) celebrated the Go-Live of the EBSI-ELSA project together with around 100 external participants and European Commission colleagues from DG CNECT, DG GROW and DIGIT, among others.
What does this go-live mean? 80% of the EBSI-ELSA infrastructure is live and accessible through the ELSA Forum since June 24th. The service will continue being refined and by December this year will be complemented by a self-service tool called the Intellectual Property (IP) wallet. In the meantime, this milestone paves the way to carry out pilots in live environments that will use the EBSI-ELSA infrastructure and leverage on an effortless and trustworthy verification of information of products.
The event began with a presentation from Nicolas Hauw that laid down the cornerstone modules of the project: the digital twin creation module and the logistic module. Live demonstrations from Jeronimo Vincente Miralles and Daniel Plewa on “How to create digital twins?” as well as from Elliot Donata and Manuele Vetere on “How to share information in the supply chain” occurred, followed by their respective panel discussions. Participants included representatives of brand owners, customs, transport operators, intermediaries and experts in blockchain technology.
EBSI’s team joined the event with Pierre Marro (DG CNECT and EBSI’s senior policy officer) and José Manuel Panizo Plaza (DIGIT and EBSI’s team leader) attending. Together, they celebrated the achievement of the project: Pierre Marro highlighted the importance of the project and the hard work that has gone into it and José Manuel Panizo Plaza presented a technical overview of EBSI and explained how EBSI has become a secure and resilient network with the capacity to enable projects like EBSI-ELSA. EBSI’s dynamic ecosystem, that EUIPO is a part of has continuously pushed for innovation, cooperation and creative solutions to the problems that society is facing today regarding authenticity of information and its verification. After that Joachim Schwerin, principal economist at DG GROW, highlighted the transformative nature of Blockchain and Decentralised Ledger Technologies (DLTs). He also identified EBSI-ELSA as a world class example of blockchain applied to the real economy and stressed that the Go-Live event is a great illustration of what can be achieved through perseverance and cooperation.
What does this mean?
In 2019 the studies showed that 5.8% of all EU imports were counterfeit, which in total corresponds to EUR 119 billion. The EBSI-ELSA Go-Live event is a milestone marking a step closer to the verification and transparency of supply chains and products in the European Union. EBSI-ELSA is ready, as soon as the EBSI production network is launched, to demonstrate the full potential and impact of EBSI for European citizens and societies.
You can access the full presentation on the event’s page here and the event’s recording here. You can also learn more about the EBSI-ELSA project here. For further information about the EBSI-ELSA infrastructure, please feel free to contact:
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