EU Trademark Reform Package

At the 21 April 2015 the Commission, the European Parliament and the Council have reached in so-called "trilogue discussions" provisional political agreement. The pillars of the trademark reform are:

• Significant reductions of the fees for European Union trademarks covering all 28 Member States. The agreed changes will lead to savings of up to 37%, in particular for businesses that seek protection of their registered European Union trademarks beyond an initial period of 10 years;

• Streamlined, more efficient and harmonized registration procedures across all trade mark offices in the EU. Faster and less burdensome procedures will be a great improvement for successfully growing companies, mainly SMEs, which roll out their business beyond one Member State and seek trade mark protection in front of multiple national administrations;

• Strengthened means to fight against counterfeits in particular of goods in transit through the EU’s territory. This will prevent abuse of the EU as a distribution hub for illegal fake goods to world-wide destinations;

• Modernized rules and increased legal certainty by adapting trade mark rules to the modern business environment and clarifying trade mark rights and their limitations.

To read more about the EU Trademark Reform Package: click here