Trademark developments in Austria

In accordance with the latest EU Directive on trademarks, the trademark legislation in Austria has recently been updated.

In come Certification marks and the ability to divide applications. Out goes a need for notarised documents when recording trademark assignments.

It's all change with respect to renewal fees. Austria applied a unique approach to trademark renewals, more commonly seen with patents, in that the renewal fee increased over time i.e. the renewal for the second term of 10 years was lower than that for the third term of 10 years, which was in turn lower than the fourth term of 10 years.

These fees still apply to registrations falling due for renewal before 1 September 2018, but then a new fee system will come in. This will see a set fee irrespective of whether this is the registration's first renewal, second, third or 10th renewal.

However, it's not all that simple. Registration terms will change to being calculated from the application date. They have until now been calculated from a later registration date - and just for a bit of added complexity, the renewal date would be 'extended' to the last day of that month.

Existing registrations falling due for renewal on or after 1 September 2018 will have their renewal dates shortened so they are calculated from the application date.

Example

Therefore, if you have a case that was applied for on 23 November 2007 and matured to registration on 2 October 2008, it would fall due for renewal on 31 October 2018.

If it is renewed it will then remain in force until 23 November 2027.

To compensate trademark owners, if the term is shortened by one year or more, there is a fee discount available of €70 per year.

Austrian trademarks registered from 1 September 2018 will fall due for renewal 10 years from their application date. Until then, the term will be calculated from its registration date.

We will have nearly one more year where Austrian trademark renewal fees are calculated on a sliding scale and then after this still a number of years where the calculation of Austrian renewal fees will require careful checking.

Information from the Austrian Patent Office regarding renewal/maintenance fees is contained here (see page 5).

Trademark Annuities...

In case the title of this blog left you with a quizzical look, no, the title is correct. Those of you that work across intellectual property rights (e.g. in both patents and trademarks) will be familiar with the payment of patent annuities.

However, there's a select group of jurisdictions where annual fees are payable to maintain trademark registrations.

Annual fees make the Cayman Islands one of the most expensive jurisdictions in which to maintain trademark registrations (although recent hikes in the official fees in the UAE and Venezuela means it's not the only place where maintaining a trademark registration can cost a fortune).

The Cayman Islands Registry used to allow representatives from anywhere to attend to matters before them. This changed in 2012 so that a local representative was required. I've previously worked with the local Registry but this change prevented me from doing so directly and therefore being able to maintain trademarks most cost-effectively for clients. Local agents in the Cayman Islands tend to be expensive reflecting the high cost of living there. It is worth considering paying all the annual fees (up to a registration's renewal date) in bulk to reduce the level of professional fees.

It's also worth being 'tactical' and avoiding registering trademarks in December. Annual fees fall due on 1 January each year so if you register in December you'll find yourself with an immediate payment to be made to keep the registration you have only just got in force.

The Cayman Islands are now looking to introduce a fresh trademark law (that removes its dependency on UK or Community registrations). It will be interesting to see how they set their official fees. Annual fees may be abolished but they will need to bring in examiners to handle applications filed under a new substantive trademark law so an increase in initial filing fees and, possibly, renewal fees could be anticipated.

Like the Cayman Islands, the Turks and Caicos Islands are a British Overseas Territory. They also share a need for annual fees to be paid to maintain trademark registrations. With a population roughly half that of the Cayman Islands and an economy that is not as developed, the number of trademarks registered in the Turks and Caicos Islands is a lot less.

Remaining firmly in the Western Hemisphere, Honduras is another country where annual fees are due. Again, I think it's worthwhile considering paying them in bulk up to a registration's renewal date as it can make the management of the registration easier.

Don't confuse these annual fees for Honduras with rehabilitation taxes. These taxes, which are unique to Honduras, are an optional payment. When paid they will protect a registration from being cancelled for non-use. Therefore, you only need to pay them if you're not using a trademark.

Rehabilitation taxes can easily be forgotten about and this is understandable when they are optional and not a mandatory maintenance requirement. They can be paid retrospectively. Therefore, if you have a registration that is vulnerable to cancellation on the grounds of non-use but you wish to file an opposition based on this registration, you would just need to back-pay any rehabilitation taxes prior to filing an opposition to help avoid a counter cancellation action on the grounds of non-use.

So annual maintenance payments to maintain trademark registrations may not be common, but if you help manage trademark renewals or maintenance then be aware that they can crop up from time-to-time. Even if you don't have patents under your responsibilities, you may also come across annual fees/annuities when maintaining design registrations (particularly in countries where the design law is a subset of the patent law) or domain names.

Closed Trade Marks Registers still existing

There are a handful of former Trade Marks Registers that have since merged into other Registers but for many intents and purposes are still in existence.

Some old Registers may not add new cases but their old registrations remain on record

Having an unhealthy collection of modern atlases as a child (in the days before the internet), I was aghast when I began working in this field and first came across a trade mark in Sabah. What? Where? I thought I'd heard of every country...

Sabah, formerly the British Crown Colony of North Borneo, had its own Trade Marks Registry operating from the capital Jesselton (now known as Kota Kinabalu). The same is true of neighbouring Sarawak.

Sabah and Sarawak joined with Malaya to form Malaysia. The region of Malaya, with connotations of its British colonial past, is now more properly referred to as Peninsular Malaysia.

The separate Trade Marks Registers remained in place although no new applications were possible; filing a Malaysian application was now required. For a stage, I understand it was possible to merge identical registrations in Malaya, Sabah and Sarawak into a single Malaysian registration but this is no longer possible. This is why there are still registrations in Malaya, Sabah and Sarawak being renewed (and assigned, etc.). However, they are all maintained and renewed at the Intellectual Property Corporation of Malaysia with headquarters in Kuala Lumpur but branch offices in Sabah and Sarawak.

These registrations provide protection in their relevant geographic area and there is a possibility that the owners of identical or highly similar marks may not be the same in different parts of Malaysia.

It is perhaps worth noting that Malaysia now contains three federal territories. Two of these are in Peninsula Malaysia (Malaya) but the other, the wealthy island of Labuan, was ceded by Sabah to the federal Malaysian government in 1984. As such it is possible that an owner of identical Malaya/Sabah/Sarawak registrations would not have coverage for the whole modern day country of Malaysia. (In this event it would, of course, be possible to make a new application in Malaysia.)

Flag of Transkei, one of three bantustans that had their own trade marks law

Of more notorious note are the three trade mark jurisdictions derived from former bantustans in South Africa. Four of these achieved independence, albeit unrecognised by the international community, the so-called "TBVC States" of Transkei, Bophuthatswana, Venda and Ciskei. The latter introduced intellectual property legislation in respect of copyright only so it was just the first three that had Trade Marks Registers.

Flag of Venda

Following the end of apartheid, these Registers were generally incorporated into the South African Register unless there were overlapping rights in which case they continued to cover the applicable geographic area (with provisions to cover the whole of South Africa if the overlapping rights lapsed or were cancelled). I have no idea how many Transkei/Bophuthatswana/Venda registrations now exist - I imagine they would be mostly held by local companies and they are relatively few in number. They have a special numbering in place. They are managed by the Companies and Intellectual Property Commission in Pretoria.

The flag of Bophuthatswana

Bophuthatswana was arguably the most well known of the bantustans as it contained Sun City (casinos being illegal in apartheid South Africa) and was the setting of an infamous coup in 1994 that saw the bantustan's last leader, Lucas Mangope, trying to cling to power and an invasion by Eugène Terre'Blanche's Afrikaner Resistance Movement.

Elsewhere in Africa, OAPI has grown at various junctures. Mali joined up in 1984 and was followed in 1990 by Guinea. Other countries have followed suit, but in the case of Guinea and Mali they had Trade Marks Registers of their own prior to OAPI accession (the others were Cautionary Notice countries).

Flag of Guinea

Mali's Register has now ceased to exist, but Guinea's is still - somewhat questionably - operational for renewals, assignments, etc.

Finally, at the tip of Africa is Tangier (sometimes Tangiers). Prior to independence, Morocco was largely governed by France and Spain, except the city of Tangier which was under the administration of various countries as the Tangier International Zone. The city enjoyed libertarianism unlike the rest of Morocco and even much of Europe and became the home for a number of escapist residents. It also had its own trade mark law which remained when it was integrated into Morocco upon independence in 1956.

Flag of Tangier International Zone

Parallel to this was a trade mark regime in "Morocco (Casablanca)"; the Casablanca often being added as this was the location of the Trade Marks Office and to distinguish it from Tangier. Registrations in Morocco (Casablanca) covered the whole of Morocco except Tangier.

In late 2004, a new trade mark law was introduced in Morocco to cover the entire country. Existing Morocco (Casablanca) and Tangier registrations would remain in force, each covering the whole country. Many trade mark owners would register in both. Upon renewal they will now only have to renew one of the registrations. This could be as late as 2024 in view of the 20-year registrations terms governed by the old laws in Morocco and Tangier.

These registrations can all be marked as covering Morocco, but many records may not have been amended to show this so you may still come across registrations in Tangier and/or Morocco (Casablanca).

Pay attention with country codes

Be careful with respect to country codes as codes used for these jurisdictions are often created internally or by database companies and then may come into use for other countries internationally. SS was commonly used for Sabah, but this is now the country code for South Sudan, independent since 2011. I have seen TK used for Transkei, but Tokelau is assigned this country code. Tokelau does not have a trade mark law (New Zealand registrations currently cover the territory) but it does possess a Domain Name Registry using this as its ccTLD.

We can come across many obscure countries when managing trade marks around the world. When it comes to post-registration matters like renewals then it is apparent that we have a few more jurisdictions to take into account.

Seniority Tool from OHIM

In addition to their TMView and EuroClass projects, OHIM is also heading up a cooperation tool with EU National Offices surrounding seniority.

As a quick briefing to those outside of the EU and not completely familiar with the concept of seniority, this allows earlier registrations in EU member states to be 'packaged' into a Community Trade Mark. The national registrations can then be allowed to lapse and renewal fees can be saved; significant savings can be achieved if there are a number of registrations across EU member states.

Named the 'Seniority Tool' this has an aim of harmonised seniority databases. It is not particularly well publicised so far and only 15 National Offices (out of 25) are participating at this moment in time: Benelux, Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Estonia, France, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Lithuania, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Sweden and the United Kingdom. The non-participation of Germany, Italy, Poland and Spain is particularly noticeable.

OHIM's literature on the Seniority Tool states:

"Several national offices and other national administrations such as enforcement authorities often treat earlier trade marks as 'expired' or 'cancelled', even when seniority has been claimed under the CTM Regulation for that mark. To better comply with Directive 2008/95/EC, EU national offices need to update their databases to include information regarding seniority. By harmonising the seniority information among national offices, the Seniority Tool will help better achieve this goal effectively."

Seniority has been used apprehensively by practitioners, and while the absence of case law will continue to make many nervous at relying upon it, having seniority information on national databases in addition to the OHIM database should add some confidence to the concept.

According to OHIM, four of the participating National Offices, namely, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Ireland and Portugal have implemented the seniority tool into their Office website so I've checked out examples in the latter two databases to see how this works.

Unfortunately, Irish Registration No. 94544 for HEINEKEN shows as 'Removed' and no seniority information is referred to in the database, not even in the 'Notings' field. Not the most encouraging of starts and we must hope that the use of the word "implemented" by OHIM means "implementation in progress" and not "implementation completed".

For Portuguese Registration No. 148893 VIMTO (which I cannot link to) we do have a status of "REGISTRATION LAPSED - Seniority claimed for CTM" so here we have an example of how the tool is meant to work. I could anticipate there may be a need for some education of authorities here to ensure they look beyond the words "REGISTRATION LAPSED" when checking a registration's status.

In the United Kingdom - yet to implement this tool - where relative grounds examination is not performed, the Office does nevertheless notify owners of national marks should a potentially similar later application be advertised for opposition purposes. Conversely, they do not, as a matter of course, notify owners of earlier Community Trade Marks. It will be interesting to note if they may end up sending out notifications to owners of national registrations which have lapsed but are subject to a claim to seniority. I would anticipate not, but the underlying intention in such scenario is to keep the national registration and the benefits this entails (albeit within a CTM to avoid duplication and excess renewal fees).

OHIM continue to invest in tools that fit their name of being an "Office for Harmonisation" although let's hope this one does not prove to be a white elephant when many could prefer the continued (and rapid) development of TMView and EuroClass.

Cost optimisation in a challenging trade mark world‏

I've recently read a report on trends in IP management. (Of course, the responses may not be truly representative of the global picture but let's assume they are.)

I'll concentrate my commentary on trade marks as this is my core area of expertise. It is not surprising that 93% of trade mark professionals say controlling costs is important.

Litigation costs are of most concern. The best lawyers are needed in order to fight litigation cases and they don't tend to come cheaply. Nevertheless, for key jurisdictions where there are a number of good law firms, large organisations should not be reluctant to shop around. Trying different approaches can work too. Negotiating a (bigger) blanket discount could be appropriate. Or debate dangling the carrot of juicy litigation but expect a firm to provide standard trade mark registration and prosecution services at beneficial rates. Alternatively, consider retaining some firms as pure litigators and use other (less expensive) firms to handle the less complex matters.

When it comes to trade mark registration, searches and portfolio management, these are more controllable.

When it comes to searches, the number of FREE tools out there to conduct preliminary searches is growing. I've blogged on Europe and the US before. Since then Avantiq now offer 35 databases for a free identical overview. Of course, free tools provide a lot of peace of mind when it comes to costs. I'm not here to endorse them but being aware of free tools should be helpful.

The commercial search providers are increasing the number of databases available on-line all the time. These tend to work on a price-per-hit basis which, to me, does not help transparency when it comes to costs. Consider a subscription for these (although they often have a "fair use" policy) and limit this to key databases that you need to check regularly, if necessary. Strategise which ones will give you the most value. If it costs, say, €1000 a year for one country's database this may seem reasonable, but if it is used merely as a preliminary step and you are still proceeding with nearly as many (non-clearing) full availability searches then you might not be recouping the costs.

Obviously the ease of use of a commercial database is important to ensure best internal efficiencies and do be careful not to be sucked in by a "our platform contains 70+ trade mark databases" if 80% of your portfolio is in, say, 20 countries.

I've worked in organisations that need global trade marks and then those that look for localised or regional brands. For the former, the commercial databases can be great as you can check multiple databases through a single platform. There can be costs incurred due to the number of hits but these could well be outweighed against the lengthy amount of time it would take to check multiple databases independently.

However, if your organisation has a local or regional approach to trade marks then many Trade Marks Offices provide free databases to check. These can be in the local language but if the field for trade mark is not apparent, a quick translation of the page through Google can usually point it out. Be careful in some countries that are members of the EU and/or the Madrid Protocol but where the Community and International Registers need checking separately.

Having multiple resources to check requires set down guidelines containing quick links to the appropriate web pages. This will be time-consuming to prepare - and with databases developing and new tools coming to market it will always be work-in-progress - but most would see it as worthwhile. Having a gatekeeper for this procedure can be good, alternatively having collective responsibility can keep it fresh and updated. Much of this can depend on department culture. But now you're thinking this sounds great but would never happen in our organisation, the procedure would get started and then put on the back burner and forgotten about? That's when you need to give someone like myself a call and have a procedure drafted up and presented to your team in an agreed time scale. If need be, have the external consultant review it each year too. A good consultant will be able to analyse and explore options for your paid-for searches too so you are getting the best value. The best consultants will be impartial to the various options available.

Consultancy is an area that was identified as requiring support by trade mark professionals. I can understand this. The definition of "consultancy" is broad but I'll narrow it down - for the purpose of this blog - to process management which can include when you go to suppliers and who those suppliers could be. It is important to have robust but easy-to-follow procedures. It can be very useful to have an outside pair of eyes look at internal processes. I've walked into an organisation before and with some remarkably small tweaks have enabled it to become more efficient. When you are busy with day-to-day work it can be difficult, to use an English phrase, to see the wood for the trees. Bigger changes can often require more selling. I've suggested wacky changes in the past - they've not been entirely serious but they can get other people thinking. The creativity of the collective can be an amazing tool.

"Old fashioned" methods are not always a relic from the past that we must move away from. Their simplicity can be undervalued. With some original thinking these can often be adapted to modern infrastructures.

Outsourcing was rated less important than consultancy although depending on your definitions there is an overlap. In terms of managing a trade mark portfolio, I would anticipate this is where trade mark professionals outsource the most, particularly with renewals and watching.

To be honest, outsourcing is not always going to save you external costs. If you're a big organisation then many of your agents will be giving you discounted rates so you can argue that the discounted rates an outsourcing company has negotiated may not be much greater than what you already have; then take into account the provider's charges. However, outsourcing the risk and having a reduced internal administrative burden can produce savings that are less easy to see. When you're located somewhere where recruiting staff is difficult it can be additionally advantageous.

Staff can be very much anti-outsourcing. To some they take it personally as though they cannot be trusted with, for example, managing a renewal programme. Some fear for their own jobs. It can be something to genuinely fear, but outsourcing can free up time to allow staff to be more value adding to a business and be seen as less of a cost figure. In any case, often there will be retirements or resignations regardless and any job losses outsourcing contributes to will be natural rather than forced.

From my side, the challenges being faced have made people be more open minded to changes as they view them as more necessary. Openness has to be a good thing.

A "one-size fits all" approach is inappropriate. Professionally I enjoy going into organisations whether I am given a blank canvas or something with more specific aims.