Trade mark registration would be quicker, cheaper and more efficient for businesses under draft legislation approved by MEPs on Tuesday. Rules, which still need to be approved by EU member states, would modernize already existing trademark registration and protection rules to foster innovation and economic growth in the EU.
“With 20 million companies in the EU it’s important that the new legislation is simple and flexible enough to give companies and entrepreneurs the protection that fits their needs. This means quicker and high quality administrative procedures, modern and clear rules which take into account new technology, and not least flexible solutions for growing companies”, said the lead MEP Cecilia Wikström (ALDE, SE).
Updated trade mark legislation would preserve and strengthen the already existing dual system of national and EU trade marks while at the same time ensuring better protection of trade marks by taking into account the new developments of business environment.
More efficient protection
To ensure effective protection of trade mark, new rules would further harmonise certain aspects of national and EU application procedures and the rights guaranteed by a trade mark. Trade mark registration would also be cheaper, especially for SMEs, as trade mark could be registered for only one product class, instead of three classes.
In addition, requirement of “graphic representability” of trade mark would be removed so that it would be able to register marks with greater precision. For example, to register a sound, instead of submitting a printed sheet music with the trade mark application, an mp3 file of the actual tune could be submitted.
The updated rules would also help trade mark owners to prevent goods bearing essentially identical trade mark from being imported into the EU.
“European Union Intellectual Property Agency”
MEPs propose new name “European Union Intellectual Property Agency” to OHIM, the EU office responsible for trademarks. They also suggest Community trade mark to be called European Union trade mark.
The proposed legislation also introduces several improvements to the structure and governance of the agency as well as proposals to strengthen cooperation between national trade mark registration offices and the EU agency.
Next steps
This vote constitutes the European Parliament’s first reading position. Under the co-decision procedure, the Council of Ministers may accept the Parliament’s position or adopt its own position, for further discussion with Parliament.
The European Parliament voted on its first reading of the draft legislation, in order to consolidate the work done so far and hand it over to the next Parliament. This ensures that the MEPs newly elected in May do not have to start from scratch and enables them to build on work done during the current term. The new Parliament may, nevertheless, decide to start afresh, if a committee so requests and with the agreement of the conference of the leaders of the political groups.
Source: EP
