1 October saw changes to the way the UK Intellectual Property Office (UKIPO – formerly the Patent Office) deals with the registration of trade marks. The most important aspect of the change is that the UKIPO will no longer prevent the registration of a trade mark which is similar to an earlier conflicting trade mark unless the owner of the existing trade mark opposes the application. On making an application, if the examiner finds a pre-existing trade mark which appears to conflict with that being applied for, he will give the applicant the choice of continuing the application or withdrawing it. If the applicant continues, UKIPO will write to the registered owner of the existing trade mark to see if they wish to oppose the application. UKIPO will not write to owners of Community Trade Marks (CTMs), so if you have copyrights protected by CTMs, you will need to ‘opt in’ to be informed, otherwise the risk is that a UK trade mark might be registered which conflicts with your CTM. Once a trade mark application has been published in the Trade Marks Journal, you have three months in which to raise your objection. For further information on monitoring a trade mark application or registration,
see the UKIPO website.
Content by: The Made Simple Group
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