What countries does EU trademark cover?
EU trademark covers all EU member states. United Kingdom will be covered also until the Brexit date or alternatively the end of transition period.
What are the benefits of EU trademark registration?
You can cover the whole European Union with one single trademark registration. Registered EU trademark gives you legal rights in all EU member states (current and future ones). It is the most effective way to protect your trademark in Europe. The cost of registration is minimal. For a trademark in one class the cost is approximately 3€/country/year.
What are the downsides of EU trademark registration?
The initial cost is slightly higher than filing a trademark in only one or two European countries. If you need trademark protection in only one or two EU countries, it might be cheaper to protect the mark in those, but more than that, EU trademark will be much cheaper.
A registration obstacle (for example, descriptiveness of the name or prior registered trademark) even in one EU country is enough to prevent the EU registration as a whole. EU registration is valid in all countries or in none of them.
Who can apply for EU trademark?
Any individual or company can apply for an EU trademark. For those individuals and companies who are based in European Economic Area (EEA) countries (EU members and Norway, Iceland, and Liechtenstein) it is not mandatory to use a professional representative.
A non-EEA based individual or company must use a professional representative in all proceedings before the office (apart from mere filing filing of the application).
How is an EU trademark application examined, and how long it will take?
EU trademark application is examined by examiners EU intellectual property office, based in Alicante Spain. If there are no issues raised in the examination, the trademark can be preliminarily approved in even less than a week.
What to do if you receive a refusal (notification) from EUIPO?
If you receive a notification letter from EUIPO informing you that the applied trademark cannot be registered, we are happy to give you a preliminary assessment of you case free of charge.
Can EU be designated in an application for international trademark registration at WIPO?
Absolutely. In that you must designate a second language for your EU trademark. If you file your international application in English, you must choose French, German, Italian or Spanish as the second language for EU.
Reggster is an online trademark filing service provided by a Finnish based law firm, Ipriq Intellectual Property Law. We specialise in trademark prosecution. We are based in Helsinki, Finland. Our attorneys have more than 10 years of experience in protecting EU trademarks for companies around the world.