New Trade Mark Laws From 1 October 2008

From 1 October 2008 the Trade Mark Rules 2000 will be replaced with the Trade Mark Rules 2008. The Intellectual Property Office hopes that the new rules will modernise and consolidate existing trade mark laws making them more accessible.

The most significant change relates to the opposition period when a third party may oppose the registration of a trade mark. The new rules will change the opposition period from a fixed three-month period to two months. This will mean that the 90% of applications which currently proceed without opposition will go through to registration much quicker. Unopposed trade mark applications will be registered one month earlier than what they currently are.