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Showing posts from January, 2021

Maintaining UK TM rights derived from EU registrations

  So as explained in an earlier post, when the UK left the EU cloned new trademarks were created at the UKIPO for owners of registered, active EU trademarks. These new trademarks have the same registration date as the EU trademark and are identical in every respect, other than the tacit assumption they were created under UK trademark law. As with any trademark, the new UK trademarks need to be maintained. Renewal of UK trademarks is required every 10 years from date of regsitration, starting from 6 months before the renewal date. If you miss the renewal date there is a 6 month grace period. Renewal in this period is essentially the same with no loss of rights though there is a penalty fee to pay. £1 for ‘late renewal’. The official fees payable to the UKIPO for renwewing a UK trademark are £200 for the first class of goods or services, and £50 for each extra class. Renewals for non UK resident owners requires a UK representative. If you would like cost effective trademark represent...

EU trademarks and new UK rights

  Owners of EU trademarks now have freshly minted equivalent rights in the UK. More than 1.5m new trademark records were created and became active as the clock struck 11pm on 31st December 2020 marking the end of the UK’s transiton period and its time in the EU. To qualify an EU trademark needed to have been registered and active at this time. The new comparable trade marks are UK rights, that exist independently from the EU equivalents. They have the same filing date as the original EU rights, but must be maintained separately. As they will be treated as if applied for under UK trade mark law. Recognising which UK trademarks stemmed from EU seniority is straightforward, as their registration number will begin UK009 followed by the EU registration number. Those EU rights that were obtained through WIPO and the Internal Registration under the Madrid protocol use the prefix UK008 followed by the last the last 8 digits of the International Registration number. The representa...

Legal Tech’s Predictions for E-Discovery in 2021

  No in-person review? No problem. Lawyers and legal technologists make their predictions on how the move to remote work, the proliferation of collaboration platforms, and more will affect e-discovery in 2021.  Read the complete article.

Brexit – EU trademark rights receive identical rights in the UK

  The UK finally left the EU when the transition period ended at 11pm on 31st December 2020. Owners of registered EU trademark owners then awoke on the 1st January 2021to to find they had equivalent rights continuing in the UK. These rights mirror their existing EU rights. With the same dates of filing, registration and renewal, as well as the details of the mark and goods and services. Unfortunately for EU trademark applicants who had filed but had not reached registration, their pending rights did not carry over. Instead they have a 9 month grace period from the start of the year within which to apply in the UK to keep their original date of filing in the EU for seniority. TradeMarkDirect offer competitively priced UK, EU, US and WIPO trademark advice and registration, as well as for any registry in the world for trademarks, designs and copyrights.