A new Trade Marks Act was recently ratified and became effective as from June 1, 1997.
The main features of the new Act are as follows:
- It has been made possible to protect three-dimensional Trademarks.
- Applications will no longer be advertised for opposition purposes prior to registration. Instead, once the Patent Office has conclusively accepted an Application, it will be registered directly and its registration advertised in the Patent Office Gazette, at which time the opposition period (2 months) will start.
- It will no longer be possible to claim the whole class, or claim "all other goods/services" of classes for new Trademark Applications. Instead, it will be necessary to either claim the class headings of the Nice Classification System, or specifically list all goods of interest to the applicant.
