• New CTM Search System Launched

    On 10 March 2008, the national searches conducted in respect of CTM applications became optional.

    Applicants who want to receive the customary national search reports, which identify potentially conflicting marks in the participating E.U. member states, must now request them on filing and pay a fee. CTM search reports, highlighting earlier CTMs, will continue to be issued for all applications.

    Applicants requesting national searches must pay for searches in all participating countries1. This is disappointing given the past disparities in the usefulness of different countries’ search reports. However, the new reports are expected to share a common format, which may resolve some of these concerns. The reports will provide application, priority and registration dates, holder name and contact details, representations of the marks and the classes claimed.

    The search fee is €192.

    Making the national searches optional could hand a small costs advantage to many applicants, who often do not need them because they have already searched the countries of actual commercial interest. However, the attractiveness of the searches is diminished by the fact that some of the most commercially important countries, such as France, Germany and Italy, continue to refrain from searching. Moreover, the extent to which the new harmonised search reports will make up for the shortcomings of the old reports will not be clear until the reports begin to be issued.

    For now, subscribing to the national searches is probably worthwhile as a lowcost means of obtaining basic information on third-party rights. Unless national searches have already been conducted, we therefore recommend including searches in new CTMs until the system has been tried and its usefulness assessed.

    We will report further details of the new system on our website, www.jenkins.eu, as they become available.

    1Austria, Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Lithuania, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovak Republic, Spain, Sweden and the U.K.