Calling all brand owners

An anouncement has been made by the Community trade mark office (OHIM) of plans to dramatically reduce the official costs involved in filing a trade mark application.  This means that the amount it will cost to protect your name or logo by a European Community trade mark (or CTM) will be much more appealing to smaller businesses. (Although the fees will still be significantly higher than the official fees for filing a UK trade mark application at the UK IPO, which is currently £300 for 3 classes.)

The fees for filing a CTM application (on-line) at the moment, to cover 3 classes of goods or services, are 1600 Euros, and the aim is to lower this figure to 1000 Euros per application.  This is due to a whopping 300 million Euro surplus that OHIM is trying to shed, and in doing so is giving back to the people who use its service.