Happy 30th Birthday EUIPO

This year marks the 30th anniversary of the European Intellectual Property Organisation (EUIPO).

Over the last thirty years, the EUIPO has become an important EU institution in the global intellectual property landscape. It has grown from a modest office with 96 employees from 15 EU countries into an organisation employing more than 1 000 staff members dealing with almost 300,000 applications annually, and in that time it has registered over three million trade marks and almost two million designs. The Office of Harmonization of the Internal Market (OHIM), as the EUIPO was called then, entered into force on 15 March 1994.

But what has been so special about an EU trade mark?

The creation of the EU trade mark allowed the registration of a trade mark to cover all of the, then 12, Member States of the European Union under a harmonised trade mark law and practice. As the EU enlarged, so did the number of countries covered by an EU registration.  The original twelve members, Belgium, Denmark, France, Germany, Greece, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Portugal, Spain, and the United Kingdom, were joined in 1995 by Austria, Finland, and Sweden, then in 2004 by Cyprus, Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Malta, Poland, Slovakia, and Slovenia, by Bulgaria and Romania in 2007.  A final addition of Croatia came in 2013.  This meant that instead of filing 26 individual national applications to obtain protection in each of the 28 Member States of the EU (Luxembourg, the Netherlands, and Belgium having joined together and created a single Benelux trade mark registration), a single application covering all 28 countries could be filed. The unitary nature of the EU trade mark meant that after Brexit the UK was no longer part of the EU trade mark and the EU Registered Community Design and has to be filed separately as a national UK trade mark or UK design to be protected.

OHIM was a huge success from the outset.  In 1996, the first year of its operation, 43,000 Trade mark Applications were filed. And it did not stop with trade marks: in 2003 the OHIM gained a new competence for Registered Community Designs.

Innovation and accessibility has been key to the success of the Office and the full Office file is available to view online with communications handled via its portal.

In 2010 the Office launched its search engine TMView, allowing an international search for trade marks in many national registers.  Many more countries have joined TMView since then.

In 2016 the OHIM was renamed the European Intellectual Property Office (EUIPO) and in 2017 the EUIPO ranked as the world’s most innovative IP Office for the first time. The 2017 changes to the EU regulation allowed for the protection of trade marks captured in electronic form, paving the way for registration of colours, shapes, sounds, motions, multimedia, patterns and hologram marks, reflecting the dynamic nature of brand identity in the digital age. These innovations in trade mark registrations have enabled companies to protect their unique brand elements.

By 2019, 2 million trade mark applications had been filed at the EUIPO.

Bringing the timeline up to date, in 2023 the EUIPO gained competence for Geographical Indications for craft and industrial products which will enter into force in December 2025.

Of course, a unitary system also has disadvantages.  For example, the EUIPO can reject a trade mark application based on an earlier right or a ground only relevant in a single Member State.  The increasing number of Member States also increases the number of national trade mark rights that could be relied on to oppose an EU trade mark application. And if an opposition based on an earlier right is successful, the protection of the EUTM in all EU member states is invalid (although all is not necessarily lost as there is a mechanism known as conversion which allows for national rights to be sought if the earlier right is not a pan-EU one).

The founding and development of the EUIPO has been clearly a success story for IP rights protection in the European Union. Even during Covid numbers of trade mark applications at the EUIPO increased year on year.

The European Trade Mark and the Registered Community Design are highly efficient ways to secure and maintain protection in all the EU member states with only a single trade mark or design application.

The EUIPO today is a paperless office, always aiming to improve and offer more services in the field of IP.  The past 30 years have shown that a unitary system for trade marks and designs in the EU is a great benefit for IP owners not just in Europe but all over the world.

HAPPY 30^th BIRTHDAY EUIPO!