EUROPEAN UNION TRADEMARKS
December 04, 2017
On October 01, 2017 the second phase of Regulation (EU) 2015/2424 of December 16, 2015 concerning the new rules governing the former Community Trademarks (now European Union Trademarks) became effective. Said new rules refer to practical and technical issues, being the purpose of this notice to focus on practical aspects which may be summarized as follows:
What you see/hear is what you get. One of the main consequences of this statement concerns the graphical representation of a European Union Trademark (hereinafter EUTM) which has opened the possibility to file new type of EUTMs such as:
- Sound marks consisting exclusively of a sound or combination of sounds.
- Motion marks consisting of, or extending to, a movement or a change in the position of the elements of the mark.
- Multimedia marks consisting of, or extending to, the combination of image and sound.
- Hologram marks consisting of elements with holographic characteristics.
The main feature of the above mentioned EUTMs is the possibility to submit MP3 and MP4 files to meet the representation requirement, a possibility not available before October 01, 2017, in addition (now optional) to a graphic representation, for example, a musical notation for sound marks.
Moreover, pure figurative marks have been sub-classified to introduce new types, such as:
- Position marks consisting of the specific way in which the trade mark is placed on or affixed to the product.
- Pattern marks consisting exclusively of a set of elements that are repeated regularly.
- Colour marks consisting exclusively of a single colour without contour or a combination of colours without contours.
- Three dimensional marks have been renamed to read "Shape marks" which may consist either of a strict shape mark (no word elements) or a shape mark containing word elements.
Smell, taste and smell marks are not admitted at present as with the current technical means in hand they cannot be represented on the register properly as to meet the current requirements.