• ECTA will hold, in collaboration with OHIM and the Danish, Finnish, and Swedish Patent and Trade Mark Offices, a Round Table in Helsinki on 13 September 2010 ”The Community Trade Mark and the National Trade Marks: are they in harmony? The Scandinavian countries’ points of view"

    Information
    Programme
    Registration form
  • At the occasion of its 60th Autumn meeting, ECTA will hold, in collaboration with OHIM and the Bulgarian, Hungarian and Polish Patent Offices, a Round Table in Cracow on 22 October 2010 ”The Community Trade Mark and the National Trade Marks: are they in harmony? The Eastern European points of view"

    Information
    Programme
    Registration form
  • ECTA Law Book IX - Community Trade Mark has been sent to all members. Should you require additional copies of this useful tool, these are available from the Secretariat at a cost of 30 Euros + postage per book (Postage costs are non-priority to Europe 7.20 Euro, non-priority to rest of World 10.80 Euros).

    Please send your order to ecta ecta.org.

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Table of Contents

1. LAW

1.1 Domain Names
  • End of Sunrise Period under Russian Cyrillic ccTLD (.РФ) on 30 September 2010
  • Participate in an important survey on Domain Names

2.OFFICE PRACTICE

2.1 OHIM
  • Proposed change of practice on professional representation
  • Spanish trade marks accessible via TMview

3. CASE LAW

No cases for the present Flash

4. ECTA NEWS

ECTA at WIPO’s sessions

Editorial Board: Anne-Laure Covin, ECTA Legal Co-ordinator, Petra Haenitsch, ECTA Assistant, Annick Mottet Haugaard, ECTA President

1 Law

1.1 DOMAIN NAMES

End of Sunrise Period under Russian Cyrillic ccTLD (.РФ) on 30 September 2010

In November 2009, a new domain zone .РФ has been established in the Russian Federation. During the sunrise period, ending on 30 September 2010, individuals and companies have been invited to file the preliminary applications for allocation of domain names in .РФ zone while the opened registration will start on 1 October 2010. READ Alexander Savenko and Riina Pärn’s article

Participate in an important survey on Domain Names

In a major new survey World Trademark Review is slicing through the debate over the new gTLD policy and revealing how industry is preparing for an expanded domain space. As it is crucial that the research collects responses via a wide base, the review is kindly asking the ECTA members to complete the 10-minute survey online, click here or paste the following link into your browser’s address bar: http://www.worldtrademarkreview.com….

The internet is set to expand beyond the 21 existing generic top-level domain (gTLD) spaces such as ’.com’. Canon is planning to run a branded ’.canon’ registry while car makers may join up to run a ’.cars’ space. Each of the many applications and possibilities will impact on how brands behave on the internet. External counsel must build business models around new gTLDs. And brands must answer much more than the question of whether or not to apply to run a new gTLD registry; they must plan how to restructure their internal teams to continue building and protecting their brand online.

ECTA has worked with MARQUES to respond to ICANN consultations to make sure members’ voices are heard in the policy development process. "However, it is still obvious that real awareness of this issue across the whole business and IP communities is still low and we need more engagement." says Andrew Mills, Chair of the ECTA Internet Committee. "This survey can therefore help provide crucial evidence in the debate."

2 Office Practice

2.1 OHIM

Proposed change of practice on professional representation

Andrea di Carlo, OHIM Director of the Institutional Affairs and External Relations Department, provided the Users Associations on 12 August 2010 with an update in connection to OHIM’s proposal to change the existing practice regarding the mandatory appointment of a professional representative within the EU for all Community trade mark applications coming from undertakings based outside the EU. The Office previously concluded that professional representation within the EU was only legally required if there needed to be certain legal exchanges with the applicant, such as some kind of deficiency, an absolute ground or a class objection, an opposition or a third party observation. The Office therefore proposed to remove the routine check on this question at the examination stage, and instead to only ask for an EU representative (if none is indicated) when a legal exchange was required. However, when the Office shared its point of view with User Associations, they faced objections from some of them. In order to allow these objections to be fully considered, the Office has decided not to introduce this change of practice and will be asking the European Commission to consider the question as part of the ongoing review of the functioning of the trade mark system in Europe.

ECTA considers indeed that the proposed change of practice is not a mere issue of interpretation of the Trade Mark Regulation and that OHIM cannot change the practice without a change of the Trade Mark Regulation.

The ECTA Professional Affairs Committee has been requested to prepare a draft position paper in view of the further discussion on this important issue in the context of the review of the European Trade Mark system.

Spanish trade marks accessible via TMview

From 9 August 2010, TMview has been offering an acces to the Spanish trade marks which has been increasing the number of IP offices covered by the joint search tool to nine.

The complete communication can be found HERE

3 Case Law

Summaries and case law provided by Darts IP

Due to the summer holidays the Courts did not render any decisions. The first cases of September will be published in the next Flash.

4 ECTA News

ECTA at WIPO’s sessions
  • Working Group on the Development of the Lisbon System (Appellations of Origin) on 30-31 August and 1-3 September 2010
ECTA, represented by Florent Gevers, Chair of the ECTA Geographical Indications Committee, and Jan Wrede, Vice Chair of the ECTA Geographical Indications Committee, are currently attending the Working Group on the Development of the Lisbon System (Appellations of Origin) (30 -31 August, 1-3 September 2010).

The meeting documents can be found HERE

  • Forty-Eighth series of Meetings of the Assemblies of the Member States on 20-29 September 2010

The Meetings of the Assemblies enable to bring together WIPO’s 184 Member States, allowing them to take stock of the progress in WIPO’s work and to discuss future policy directions.

All available documents can be found HERE

  • Twenty-Fourth Session Standing Committee on the Law of Trademarks, Industrial Designs and Geographical Indications on 1-3 November 2010
The current available documents (questionnaire concerning the protection of names of States against registration and use as trade marks and industrial design law and practice draft provisions) can be found HERE

  • Twenty-First Session of the committee of experts of Nice Union on 22-26 November 2010

No document is available at this stage.

  • Sixth Session of the Advisory Committee on Enforcement on 1-2 December 2010

The draft agenda can be found HERE