PATENTSERVIS Alicante: EU Trademark


The European Community trademark protects marks that can be expressed graphically and can distinguish products or services of one enterprise from those of other enterprises.


What obtains an owner of the registered European Community trademark?

  1. Common and uniform protection of rights:
    Community Trademarks are governed by a uniform legal system, which system provides to owner of the so registered trademark strong and uniform protection in the whole European Union. The European Community Trademark has the same effects in the whole Community, i.e. the trademark can be registered, renewed or assigned only for the whole territory of the Community.


  2. Uniform and effective procedure:
    The single application filed with one registration place and in one language version only (with indication of the other official language) shall pass only one registration procedure, i.e. it will have to meet only one set of conditions for registration instead of 25 independent national procedures.


  3. Saving of costs:
    Only one procedure in case of the single Community application brings about as a result significant savings of costs. When the costs spent for registration of a Community Trademark are compared with those of the national registrations in 25 countries, we find that a Community Trademark saves more than 70% of the costs.


  4. Priority right:
    Priority right can be claimed in the usual way. Therefore, within 6 months from the date of applying of the first trademark application in a state who is member state of the Paris Convention or member state of the World Trade Organization WTO, priority can be claimed also in case of an application filed with Office for Harmonization in the Internal Market OHIM.


  5. Right to claim trademark seniority:
    For a number of applicants the possibility to use the so called seniority right is of great importance. In practice this means to substitute the original national registrations (one or more registrations) and to integrate them into a European Community trademark without interrupting the continuity of the original registration. The effect of succession is that in case when the owner of the Community trademark gives up the original trademark or lets it lapse by not renewing it, the owner is authorized to use the same rights further, as are those the owner would have from the earlier national trademark if this trademark would remain valid further.


  6. Obligation to use the trademark:
    Use of the European Community trademark is sufficiently documented if use only in one of the Union member states is documented.


  7. Extensive legal protection available to anybody:
    A Community trademark authorizes the owner to prohibit any third party without the owner's consent from use of the same, similar or consumer's confusion allowing marking in commercial contacts. Disputes regarding the Community trademarks are conducted in courts for Community trademarks authorized by member states of the Union.


  8. Broad scope of possibilities how to use rights from Community trademarks:
    At first, it is necessary to specify the right of the trademark owner to use the European Community trademark on owner's products. Owner of this trademark can consume fully the right of free movement of goods within the European Union territory and to spread his activities in the whole territory of the European Community without any regard to frontiers, what was the main purpose to establish this form of rights protection. The Community trademark can be transformed for all products and services and can be used as pawn independently of the enterprise. The Community trademark can be licensed exclusively or non-exclusively for the whole European Union or only for some states.


  9. Prospect of enlargement:
    The European Community trademarks are valid in 25 states of the Union after the Union enlargement. In case the number of member countries of the European Union is enlarged, validity of the European Community trademark is automatically enlarged to the new countries without any necessity to pay additional fees, file applications or commence any other administrative proceedings.