European Community (EC) Trade Marks

European trademarks are the most comprehensive protection you can obtain for your business name, brand name, company logo or slogans, the protection is effective throughout the whole of the European Community.

Once the European trademark registration has been granted it will last for 10 years and is renewable in 10 year periods thereafter, the registration can therefore last indefinitely as long as the registration is renewed at the appropriate time.

Again, before the European trademark application is filed it is very important to ensure that no existing identical or confusingly similar trademarks exist which are either identical of confusingly similar to your proposed trademark. We therefore suggest that we complete our clearance searches on the UK and EC Trade Mark Registers prior to filing the application.

Although the European Registrar will search against existing national European trade mark applications and registrations before accepting the application for registration, it is much more cost effective to search the UK & EC Trade Mark Registers only then file the application and wait and see the results of the examination report. The EUROPEAN PATENT CONVENTION essentially concerns a unified procedure for filing, examination and granting a patent.

Advantages: In one single application in one language (German, English or French) may be designated 20 European countries Granting procedure of the patent is simplified.