European Union Trademark

Recent and upcoming changes concerning Community trademarks (CTM).

Key amendments to the Community trademark framework include:

• Your CTMs become "European Union trademarks" and OHIM becomes "European Union Intellectual Property Office".
• You will pay less for a trademark registered for 1 class, but you will pay more for 3 classes and above.
• If you named only class headings when determining the scope of goods and services to be covered by your trademark before 22 June 2012, you may – within the next six months – list the exact goods and services for which you intended protection. Otherwise, your trademark will cover only goods or services clearly covered by the literal meaning of the class heading (this reflects ECJ judgment C-307/10 – "IP Translator" imposing the "what you see is what you get" rule).