Intellectual Property

The accession of the European Community to the Protocol relating to the Madrid Agreement (“Protocol”) allows, under a single procedure, the international registration of a trademark on the basis of an application for Community registration of a trademark or the Community registration of a trademark on the basis of an application for international registration.

Pursuant to Regulation No. 1992/2003, a Community registration application with a request for international registration is to be submitted to the Office for Harmonization in the Internal Market, which forwards that application to the International Bureau of the World Intellectual Property Organisation. Such an application is admissible regardless of whether a specific designation has already been registered as a Community trademark. The Regulation provides also detailed rules concerning language requirements regarding the application and further proceedings.

The international registration applications related to the territory of the Community, submitted under the Protocol, will have an effect identical to that of the Community registration application.

The Regulation also contains provisions on issues such as priority of trademarks registered in one of the Member States, definite grounds for refusal of registration, Community report on the review of the application, objections as to the international registration applications covering the EC, replacement of a Community trademark by international registration and invalidity of such registration.

The Regulation allows also changing the international registration application, as regards the Community territory, to an application for registration in a specific Member State. Such a change would be available when it is not possible to indicate the Community as the territory covered by the international registration application.