Having assessed the Latvian trademarks registered in Latvia and Europe, the expert committee of the Latvian Patent Office has selected the first eight applicants for the main award of the Trademark of the Year 2024 competition. From now on, once a quarter, in a series of publications, we will introduce the companies – owners of creative, expressive and witty trademarks, candidates for the main award of the competition selected in various nominations.
Nomination: Trademark of the Year – for Latvia
The favourite Ucipuci character becomes an expressive brand
The children’s beloved Ucipuci was born in 2015, when Zane Zusta’s book “Ucipuci meklē mājas” (Ucipuci is Looking for Home) was published. It was later followed by the sequel “Ucipuci domā ārpus kastes” (Ucipuci Thinks Outside the Box). The books were nominated for the International Baltic Sea Region Jānis Baltvilks Prize in Children’s Literature and the Latvian Literature of the Year Award, as well as for the Golden Apple book design competition. These literary works are in great demand in Latvia and have already had five additional printings. Young readers in China, Macedonia, Lithuania, and Estonia can also follow Ucipuci’s adventures.
A lot of work has been devoted to the development of the UCIPUCI brand by actively creating, in cooperation with the partners, new expressions of the literary character in Liepāja Puppet Theatre, on LMT Smart TV, in publications for children, and also in the shape of a soft toy. The brand has followed a significant path of development and experience, and registering the UCIPUCI trademark was the only logical solution to protect the intellectual property of the author Zane Zusta.
Nomination: Trademark of the Year – for Europe
The oasis for board sports
Renārs Bīrmanis, a passionate and skilled extreme sports enthusiast, founded the company RB Projekts 23 years ago. The Boards.lv shop, occupying just a few square meters, became an oasis for fans of board sports – professionals, amateurs and “Sunday drivers” or just all those who choose world-recognized sports brands for their clothing and accessories. After seven years, boards.lv merged with the Aloha shop, and now it is an oasis for fans of both winter and summer extreme sports with high-quality equipment, clothing, and accessories.
The team of RB Projekts created the first Latvian official skateboard parks in Liepāja and Salacgrīva.
We Skate Waves is an original product developed by the company – the unique mobile ramp that helps develop surfing technique. The founder of RB Projekts Renārs Bīrmanis says: “Surfing is becoming more and more popular, and building wave pools is a fantastically growing industry. Every pool creates an ecosystem around it, and training ramps are an essential part of it. The advantage of our product is its mobility – it can be assembled just like Lego and quickly installed anywhere. The bowl-like construction provides athletes with continuity of motion as they develop their surfing skills. Our ramp is installed in the first Wavegarden’s surfing pool in Switzerland.”