Trademark Protection Rules Europe: A Comprehensive Guide
Your trademark is the way your customers identify you. It differentiates your products or services from other brands and encapsulates your values. It may even become your most valuable asset. Your trademark is part of your intellectual property and is crucial to your success as a business.
Understanding Trademark Protection in Europe
Different from registered trademark rights, protection of use-based trademark rights has not been harmonised in Europe and is thus subject to the laws of each Member State. Trademark protection is the most significant part of the law relating to the protection of distinctive signs.
Trademark Registration in Europe
Trademarks may be registered within individual countries, or across the whole of the EU (by means of a European Union trademark). In the case of a European Union trademark, it is granted a unitary character that applies protection for that mark across the whole of the EU with certain exceptions.
Types of Trademark Registration
- National Trademark Registration: Gives protection only in the Member State in which it has been registered.
- European Union Trademark (EUTM): Provides its owner an exclusive right in all current and future EU Member States.
