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BLOG@IP::JURPatent Attorney Axel H Horns' Blog on Intellectual Property Law.
Friday, November 28, 2003Competitiveness Council (Internal Market, Research, Industry) reaches political agreement on changes to CTM system.The Competitiveness Council (Internal Market, Research, Industry) has, at the session held at Brussels on November 26 and 27, 2003 agreed to amend the Community Trade Mark system. According to document 15141/03 (Presse 337), the Council unanimously reached a political agreement on the draft Regulation modifying the CTM Regulation 40/94/EC. After finalisation of the text, the Council will adopt this Regulation at a forthcoming meeting. The document says: "This proposal aims at completing the existing Regulation by clarifying and supplementing new aspects of the functioning of the Community trademark thereby improving the efficiency of the system and increasing its added value. One of the main elements of the Presidency compromise text concerns the current searching system. On that basis, the search as regards prior national trademarks carried out by national trade mark offices is rendered voluntary. If the applicant chooses to have a search done this will be done by all the national offices participating in the search system. The search as regards prior Community trademarks carried out by the Community Office remains compulsory. Moreover the new Regulation will establish criteria in relation to the search reports aimed at improving the quality of searches. A transitional period of four years is provided for before the implementation of this new search system. The Regulation on the Community Trade mark has been in force since 1994, allowing for registrations of trade marks covering all Member States of the European Union. According to the Commission, the Community Trade mark system has generally proved to function well but in the light of the experience gained with its operation, the Commission considered that changes were called for."
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