On July 27, CLDP chaired the inaugural meeting of the Eastern Europe Expert Level Working Group on Intellectual Property Rights (“Working Group”) in Batumi, Georgia. CLDP convened IP government officials from Armenia, Moldova, and Georgia for the Working Group meeting and anticipate the participation of Azerbaijan and Ukraine in the Working Group going forward. The Working Group will promote greater harmonization, cooperation, and information sharing in the protection and enforcement of IP within the region and will increase the efficiency and commercialization of IP utilization in line with internationally accepted standards and best practices. The assembled delegations agreed upon several baseline procedures to guide future meetings of the Working Group and engaged in an open discussion of salient IP topics and issues to be addressed by the Working Group going forward. CLDP will continue stewarding the Working Group through its early stages with the goal of developing it into an integral, self-sustaining piece of the multilateral IP landscape in Eastern Europe.