EUIPO

The EUIPO, the European Union Intellectual Property Office, is the European Union agency responsible for registering European Union trade marks and European Union designs, unitary titles valid throughout the member states. Based in Alicante, the EUIPO was created in 1994 under the name Office for Harmonization in the Internal Market and took its current name in 2016. Its official website is euipo.europa.eu.

The missions of the EUIPO

First, the examination and registration of European Union trade marks and designs, and the keeping of the corresponding registers. Second, the handling of inter partes proceedings: oppositions to trade mark registration, invalidity and revocation actions against trade marks, invalidity actions against designs. Third, cooperation with national offices, such as the INPI, to harmonise examination practices, and the monitoring of intellectual property infringements through the European Observatory. The EUIPO has no competence over patents, which belong to the European Patent Office.

Proceedings before the EUIPO

Decisions of the examination, opposition and cancellation divisions may be appealed before the Boards of Appeal of the EUIPO, then before the General Court of the European Union and, on a limited further appeal, before the Court of Justice. This architecture has produced abundant case law on distinctive character, likelihood of confusion and genuine use. Infringement actions, by contrast, do not belong to the EUIPO but to the European Union trade mark courts and the design courts designated in each member state, the Paris Judicial Court for France.

Key points

In practice, the EUIPO is the office of reference for any company exploiting a trade mark or a design on several European markets. Its procedures are fast, online and relatively inexpensive, but the strategy must be coordinated with national procedures and court actions. The firm appears before the EUIPO and before the competent courts for trade mark infringement actions and Community design disputes, as part of its intellectual property practice.