SME's and Trademarks OHIM's initiatives for raising of awarenes on the importance of Trade Mark protection Beate Schmidt – Cancellation and Litigation Department (OHIM) Wipo – Rome, Italy, 4 October 2010

OHIM in Alicante Growing importance of protection intellectual property as an valuable asset of any enterprise – more and more sme understand and value the importance of effectice IP rights to protect agains counterfeits and product piracy The Ofice for Harmonization in the Internal market for Trademarks and designs in Alicante/ Spain tries to help as much as possible to make registration of rights for SME as easy and affordable as possible. If you take the time to have a look at our website, you will find all sort of valuable and practical information to help you with the registration of your rights

Intellectual Property Rights There are a number of socalled IP rights – as OHIM is competent for Trade Marks and Designs I will concentrate on them, however when looking for protection you should not forget patents or copyrights, to name just a few more

Community Trade Mark

Community Registered Design

The National Route How to obtain protection Individual applications with National PTOs Individual fee for every National application Translation Costs: Yes Protection according to national law Using the national route means to file individual applications with a national trademark office anywhere in the world according to the national requirements –although in European Union Trade Mark Laws have been harmonized, even there still exist local differences concerning procedures and examination practice to pay a (different) fee at each Office to get protection for one country only according to the national law to translate the list of goods and services in the different languages and find varying application of the Nice classification rules to pay one or more lawyer Lawyer’s fees: ?

Translation Costs (EN,FR,ES) How to obtain protection The International Route via WIPO A single fee to WIPO Prior national right necessary Individual fees to be paid to designated National Offices A ‘bundle’ of rights’ is granted Translation Costs (EN,FR,ES) The international route via the Madrid agreement or the Madrid protocol means To obtain a basic trademark in one county or in the European Union Pay a single fee to WIPO Designate countries – more than 1 from all over the world which are member to the Madrid system, including OHIM for the 27 members ot the European Union Pay an additional individual fee to the designated national offices, who will start individual examination procedures acoording to their national laws Obtain a bundle of different national rights which are subject to the national laws in the designated country Pay probably translation costs – the languages for IR being EN, FR, ES Pay probably lawyer‘s fees in one ore more countries, as in some countries you have to be represented by lawyers, and anyhow professional advice is recommanded Each right subject to the national laws of the designated country Lawyer’s fees?

The Community Route How to obtain protection 1 registration procedure Austria Belgium Bulgaria Czech Republic Cyprus Denmark Estonia Finland France Germany Greece Hungary Ireland Italy Latvia Lithuania Luxembourg Malta Poland Portugal Romania Slovak Republic Slovenia Spain Sweden The Netherlands United Kingdom 1 registration procedure in any of the languages of the EU 1 registration office: OHIM 1 fee (no translation costs) 1 right valid throughout 27 countries (unitary right) 1 court of law The community route means file one application with one single Office, the OHIM Pay one single fee ( for the time being € 1050 € for application and registration, 150 € reduced for e-filing) Translation in all the official languages of the EU included Obtain one title valid throughout all the 27 member states – the CTM and RCD are unityary rights, that is they are valid in the whole territory – however, if there are obstacles for granting protection in only one part of the community, the right cannot be granted at all. Have one way to the European Courts in Luxemburg The Community Design: 2 ways of protection The “Registered Community Design” Open system Accessible for all nationalities, sectors, companies Easy filing (e-business) No unnecessary formalities Maximum 25 years protection Cost effective Swift grant of rights 80% of designs published in 8 weeks The “Unregistered Community Design” Protection acquired by use 3 years of protection Alicante

Community Trade Mark

Size of CTM Portfolios A CTM is not only for the big players – you can see that the majority of our clients own up to 10 trademarks – 77%. The biggest portion have 2-5 CTM - , and only 8% have more than 100 marks registered.

CTM 5000 000 Last year we celebtrated 500 000 registered trademarks – the owner of that one was a SME from Italy.

http://oami.europa.eu OHIM’s Website Any information you need about OHIM and the CTM – and RCD system you can find on our webpage

www.oami.europa.eu

Newsletter

SME and newcomers section http://oami.europa.eu/ows/rw/pages/OHIM/multimedia/SME/SMEsinAction.en.do In order to provide better and specialised informations for SMEs and newcomers, Ohim has created a special space on its website, the SME and Necomer section. Here you find some video interviews with representatives from SMEs who explain why they use the community system. SMEs in Action show a selection of SMEs who sucessfully use the Community trade mark and explain how they profit from the protection.

IP Information There is also some information on why and how to apply for a trademark and design and some general information in the Quick Guides on IP, Design and Trademarks.

Hands off my my design www.handsoffmydesign.com Design Protection  especially for young people – the designers of the future! OHIM –together with  www.handsoffmydesign.com     e-Learning about European Union Design Protection:                 For the designers of the future! Here you can find e.g a IP Handbook – and a lot of links to additional information you might be interested in – and it’s also fun as there are some IP related games include!

Information

Help

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