European Union trademarks

Registering a trademark valid throughout the
European Union

Protect your brand throughout the European Union by relying on us at Brevetti Digiovanni Schmiedt in Milan. Our expert consultants will help you find the most advantageous solution and present you with all the information for how to protect your brand abroad. A trademark application in the European Union can be extended in both individual countries and all countries through a single procedure.

European Union trademarks

A European Union trademark (formerly 'Community trademark') is a trademark valid throughout the European Union (EU), which currently comprises the following 27 states:

Austria
Belgium
Bulgaria
Cyprus
Croatia
Czech Republic
Denmark

Estonia
Finland
France
Germany
Greece
Hungary
Ireland

Italy
Latvia
Lithuania
Luxembourg
Malta
Netherlands
Poland

Portugal
Romania
Slovakia
Slovenia
Spain
Sweden

A European Union trademark is not to be considered a set of independent national trademarks, since it constitutes a unique title granted by the European Union Intellectual Property Office (EUIPO, formerly Office for Harmonization in the Internal Market or OHIM, based in Alicante, Spain) and is valid in all EU states. As in other cases, the application for registration of a European Union trademark must also contain an indication of one or more classes of products or services that it is intended to distinguish with the trademark. The application for registration can be made in one of the official languages of the member states. Only after verification of the validity requirements of the trademark is it published in the trademark bulletin of the European Union.

Duration, benefits, sale or concession

A European Union trademark lasts 10 years from the date the application is filed. However, this can be extended indefinitely by renewing the registration at the end of each 10-year period.

Advantages

After learning how to protect a trademark abroad and registering it, you can benefit from numerous advantages:

The exclusive right of use of the European Union trademark is valid in all EU member countries
Centralization in Alicante (Spain) allows the procedures to be simplified considerably through the use of a single registration application, administrative center and file to be managed

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- As an alternative to filing at the EUIPO, registration applications can be filed at the national industrial property offices
- With such centralization, the costs are considerably lower than the overall costs necessary for separate registrations in all European Union countries or a plurality of them
- The fee to be paid when registering a European Union trademark has been abolished
Pre-existence of a national trademark
If you have a previous national trademark identical to what you would like to protect, you can claim its pre-existence. This will allow you to preserve your previous rights, even when renouncing the national trademark or failing to renew it.

Sale or concession of a license
You can decide to cede the trademark to third parties by requesting the registration of said transfer in the trademark register of the European Union. As an alternative, you can grant a license for a European Union trademark for individual countries or limited geographical areas. Transfers and licences may be partial, that is, regard only some products or services for which the trademark is registered.