The EU trademark is a trademark system carried out among member states of the EU in accordance with the "European Community Trade Mark Regulation" enacted in 1993.
After submitting the EU trademark application, the official receipt will be received in about 7 days, and will be announced for 3 months after the formal examination.
Features of EU Trademark
✔︎ The application fee is low, you only need to apply for registration once;
✔︎ Protection concentration
✔︎ After registration, it is only necessary to provide the trademark use certificate in any member country, which is regarded as the use in the whole EU;
✔︎ The EU trademark that has been obtained that could be automatically extended to newly joined Member States in the future.
左右滑動看表格| Member States of the EU Trademark |
United Kingdom※1, Ireland, France, Germany, Belgium, Netherlands, Luxembourg, Spain, Portugal, Denmark, Sweden, Finland, Italy, Austria, Greece, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Malta, Poland , Slovakia, Hungary, Slovenia, Bulgaria, Romania, Croatia and other European countries.
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※ 1. Britain will complete Brexit on December 31, 2020
EU trademark application process
a. Formal examination According to whether the application materials are complete, whether to claim priority and whether the trademark could be used as a representative symbol to examination.If there is a need to make corrections, an official notice will be issued to notify the applicant to make corrections,Overdue EUIPO will refuse to accept the case.Subsequently, EUIPO will send the application materials to the EU Translation Center for translation for subsequent disclosure and retrieval procedures (official languages: English, French, German, Spanish or Italian).
b. Search report The search department searches and sends the trademark search report based on the EU trademark database to the applicant, and sends the information of the application to the trademark owner of the similar trademark.
Since March 10, 2008, the national search reports of each Member State have become selective. Only when the applicant requests and pays additional fees, EUIPO will send the trademark search report of the applicant in each member country .As for the Member States that provide this service include Czech Republic, Denmark, Greece, Lithuania, Hungary, Romania and Slovakia.However, the search report on the EU trademark database and the sending of monitoring letters will continue, and the fee has been included in the application fee.
c. Monitoring letter When similar EU trademarks are found during the application process, EUIPO will also send a "monitoring letter" to the trademark owners of the previous cases while sending the trademark search report.Although the European Union will issue a “monitoring letter” to notify the trademark owner of the previous case, it is only “for reference”.In other words, not being retrieved means that there will be a conflict between the two trademarks.
d. Announcement After sending the trademark search report based on the EU trademark database to the applicant, the trademark application will be announced in the official gazette.Anyone can object to the trademark as long as the trademark has a reason for not obtaining registration during the three-month period of the trademark announcement.
e. Registration If no objection by a third party(Or the objection is not established), a registration certificate will be issued by EUIPO.
