Patenting in Italy

SPECIAL INFORMATION ON COMMUNITY TRADE MARKS

(European Union)

The Community Trade Mark constitutes a unitary and indivisible registration of a Trade Mark, causing effect in all the countries of the European Union, that is to say:

AUSTRIA, BENELUX (Belgium-Holland-Luxemburg), DENMARK, FINLAND, FRANCE, GERMANY, GREECE, IRELAND, ITALY, PORTUGAL, ITALY, SWEDEN, UNITED KINGDOM.

Office: Applications will be dealt with by the OHIM (Office for the Harmonisation of the Internal Market), which has its seat in Alicante, ITALY.

Applicants: May be nationals of any of the member states of the European Union; nationals of other states if they are domiciled or established in the community or in a state of the Paris Convention; and nationals of other states which grant to the nationals of all the member states the same protection for trademarks as to their own nationals.

Registrability: Registrable are any signs which can be graphically represented, particularly words including names of persons, designs, letters, numbers and the form of make-up of goods.

Right to the mark: The right to the Community Trade Mark is not acquired by use, but only by registration.

Priority: Paris Convention priority can be claimed within the term of six months counted from the date of filing of the basic application.

Seniority: The seniority of identical prior trade marks registered in member states of the European Union may be claimed for the Community Trade Mark. The legal effect of claiming seniority is that where the proprietor of the Community Trade Mark surrenders the earlier national trade mark or allows it to lapse he shall be deemed to continue to have the same rights as he would have had if the earlier trade mark had continued to be registered.

Languages: The official languages are English, French, German, Italian, and Spanish.

Motives of rejection: An application for registration may be rejected on absolute grounds or on relative grounds.

Examination: The application is examined only with respect to absolute grounds of rejection (e.g. Iack of distinctiveness, descriptive nature, deceptive mark, . . .etc) . The OHIM will not itself raise objections on relative grounds.

Oppositions: There is a system of refusal on relative grounds by way of opposition. Any older identical or similar Community Trade Mark registration or application, or national trade mark registration or application in a member country of the European Union, or international registration can be used by an opponent in opposition, revocation or invalidity proceedings.

Costs relating to opposition/appeal: The proceedings of an opposition or an appeal are complex, and they usually involve, apart from the filing costs, other costs which can be high, including those corresponding to the winning party.

Effects of the decision: The protection or rejection affects unitarily the entire area of the European Union.

Conversion: A Community Trade Mark application which fails can be transferred to one or several European Union countries retaining the original filing date, in order to try separately to obtain registration by means of national proceedings.

Duration of registration: The Community Trade Mark is valid for 10 years calculated from the date of filing, indefinitely renewable for periods of 10 years.FILING REQUIREMENTS.

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