Community Trade Marks

Any mark that is registered in the European Union is a Community Trade Mark (CTM). The criteria are similar to that of a UK registered mark but the owner can protect their brand throughout the EU’s 28 member states.

The countries covered by a CTM registration are Austria, Benelux (Belgium, the Netherlands and Luxembourg), Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Malta, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden and the United Kingdom.

Any applications for the registration of a CTM are made to the Office for Harmonisation of the Internal Market (OHIM) which is based in Spain. In addition, applications can be made through any member states national office. The application must be made in one of 23 languages which are used in the EU.

An application does require for any applicant to seek profession representation when registering a community trade mark. This is to ensure that the majority of applications have the highest rate of success possible. As every application has a fee, this also prevents applicants wasting money to pay the fee when their application will not succeed.

As with a UK application for registration through the Trade Marks Act 1994, there are a number of absolute and relative grounds for refusal. The grounds in relation to CTM’s do mirror the UK approach as the UK statute was written directly in line with the EU Trade Mark Directive 2008/95/EC. The absolute grounds are in relation to distinctively, descriptiveness, use of colours and shapes amongst others. The relative grounds relates to any previous marks that have already been registered which are similar/identical to the mark being put through the application process.

A community trade mark can be a great tool for a business which is looking to expand further than their initial member state, but it can however be quite a big investment for a start-up business.

By Ellis Sweetenham