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Monday, May 21, 2007

EU Council: Less Expensive Trade Mark Protection in Europe in Sight.

"[...] The fees of the Office for Harmonization in the Internal Market (Trade Marks and Designs) in Alicante, Spain (OHIM) are going to be reduced. This decision was adopted by Member State ministers at today's meeting of the EU Competitiveness Council in Brussels, which was chaired by Federal Minister of Justice Brigitte Zypries.

This fee reduction strengthens Europe as an economic location. In the future, it will be possible to register trade marks and designs through OHIM at significantly lower cost. This helps all those who wish to protect their rights against unauthorised counterfeiting, not only within their own countries but also throughout all of Europe. The Community trade mark system in Europe is a ten-year success story. In the past year alone, 77,500 trade marks were registered in Alicante. Thus the use of the system has far exceeded expectations, which has led to a substantial revenue surplus. We will now distribute this surplus to users of the system,' stated Ms. Zypries. [...]"

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more ...

With other words, today the

EU council in its "competitiveness" configuration (Internal Market, Industry and Research) has

formally adopted

Document 9427/07

endorsed by COREPER earlier this month.

I can't see anywhere a table with figures indicating the exact amount of the reduced future Official fees of the OHIM. We shall wait and see...

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