Trademarks and designs
- Searches
- Registrations of trademarks and industrial designs in OHIM and in the Polish Patent Office
- Disputes
Searches
Due to the large number of protected trademarks, the risk of a collision is high. Because filing fees are not refundable, it is worth to browse the databases of registered trademarks before making the decision on registering own trademark. The goal of the search in the databases of similar registrations is to check possible relative grounds of invalidity of the trademark. We look for similar or identical trademarks in the national and international databases.
Registrations of trademarks and industrial designs in the Polish Patent Office and OHIM
A trademark registered in the Polish Patent Office is protected on the territory of Poland. This is a basic, but not always sufficient way of protecting the brand for Polish entrepreneur. More expensive, but certainly long-term solution is to protect the Community Trademark (CTM) throughout the European Union. This is possible on the basis of one registration made by the Office for Harmonization in the Internal Market (OHIM) in Alicante. A similar situation occurs in case of industrial designs. We conduct our customers through both above procedures.
Disputes
Promotion of a brand is expensive and not every trader is willing to bear such costs. Attempts to take advantage of the reputation of the trademarks well embedded in the market in order to save at least part of the promotion costs are a common phenomenon. On the other hand, rights holders often tend to extend the scope of their monopoly over the actual entitlement, which violates the rules of fair competition. In both cases a dispute arises, which ends up before a court or at the negotiating table. We represent our clients in both cases, appearing before the court and preparing an agreement to negotiate.