TMView gets stronger and stronger

Earlier this month the TMView grew with the addition of over 1.1 million new trade marks when the Registers of Croatia, Cyprus, Mexico and Norway were added to the system.

This follows the earlier announcement that Morocco was to be integrated with TMView.

Croatia joined the EU at the beginning of the month.

Cyprus - an EU member since 2004 - has a relatively small Trade Marks Register but it was known for needing manual searches so this is a very welcome addition.

Norway is outside of the European Union, but its membership of the European Economic Area means it is very closely linked to the EU economically.

Mexico becomes the first non-European country to "go live" in TMView and represents excellent news for global rights holders.

It leaves Greece as the only EU member state without its Trade Marks Register available on TMView. Neighbouring Turkey is slated to join the TMView project at some point in the future.

TMView is positioning itself well as a free go-to database for initial knock-out searches not just for the European Union but further afield too.

Morocco to join "TMView" project

The TMView system has been a notable achievement driven by OHIM, as I have opined before.

OHIM have recently announced that Morocco will integrate with TMView. While the International Register is already incorporated within TMView and there are plans are to link this with WIPO's Global Brand Database, this does represent the first time that a non-EU country is to join the TMView project.

Over 106,000 Moroccan trade marks are already contained on the Global Brand Database and these should soon be available through TMView, which is arguably an easier to use tool.

Morocco did apply to join (what is now) the EU way back in 1987 but their application was rejected as membership is only open to "European states". Nevertheless, Moroccan-EU relations are strong and this small step is some evidence of this. Morocco often looks north to Europe; it is the only all-African state not in the African Union.

This development paves the way for other non-EU countries to come aboard TMView. Switzerland is probably at the front of the queue given it is already a part of another OHIM-led project, TMclass (recently rebranded from Euroclass) and already has an excellent on-line database available.

ROSPATENT and OHIM meeting in Alicante

As I coincidentally prepare a presentation on 'Trade Marks in Russia', I was interested to learn of ROSPATENT, the Russian IP Office's visit to OHIM at the end of last week.

Joining the TMView project was discussed. The Russian Trade Marks database is now on-line and they use established codes so hopefully this is something that can be implemented relatively easily. Russia's EU neighbours Finland and Latvia are the latest countries that will come on board TMView soon as reported on their website this Monday.

EuroClass "accession" could be something that requires substantial work and not being privy to discussions between the two Offices, I'll just have to speculate that ROSPATENT were looking at some practical pointers on how to get started/further progress. Compiling a list of acceptable terms for goods and services is a task for the Office concerned and Russia, not being an EU member, is not obliged to follow any kind of European harmonisation. As OHIM does not have Russian as an official language, if ROSPATENT was looking at a "quick" win by replicating OHIM's acceptable terms then this would still involve an enormous translation effort.

Russia's relationship with the EU - or perhaps more accurately, with certain EU states - is very much up-and-down. Political factors may play a part in how fast progress is made in bringing Russia into the family of TMView and EuroClass. Nevertheless, this appears a positive step in the direction of cooperation and OHIM should be commended on their international outreach efforts as should ROSPATENT for wanting to come on board.