On 1st October, the UK Trade Mark examination system will undergo significant changes that make it even more important to police your trade mark.
From 1st October 2007, changes to UK Trade Mark law mean that the owners of registered trade marks can no longer rely on the UK Intellectual Property Office preventing registration of similar marks. Instead, trade mark owners will be notified if their mark is identified as similar to a mark that is currently being examined. It will then be up to the owner of the identified mark to decide if they wish to oppose registration of the mark being examined. Failure to oppose in time will result in the automatic registration of the examined mark, even if it is the same as or similar to an existing trade mark registration.
Q. What happens if you move premises and don’t receive the notification from the UK Intellectual Property Office?
A. You will have lost your opportunity to oppose the mark being examined and it will automatically proceed to registration. It is considered to be your responsibility to make sure that the UK Intellectual Property Office is aware of your current address.
Q. How does the owner of a registered trade mark go about opposing a mark being examined?
A. It is always best to seek professional help to do this as the process can be complex and often confusing.
The good news is that GreenLight is there to help. We can act as your address for service for all correspondence with the UK Intellectual Property Office and let you know if/when you mark is identified as similar to a mark being examined. This service is available at a fixed annual fee. Not only that, as all our correspondence with you is by email, you need not worry if you move premises. If you change email addresses and forget to tell us, provided we have a mobile telephone number for you, we can simply text you to ask you to let us have your up to date email address.
Should you decide to oppose the mark being examined, our experts are on hand to handle the whole process for you.
In line with our transparent charging structure, we will always inform you in advance of any costs associated with opposing a trade mark application and no work will be undertaken without our approval, so you can have the peace of mind of knowing that you will never receive an unexpected bill.
Click here to sign up for our GreenLight BrandWatch service – we’ll do the watching leaving you free to run your business!
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