Ensure Your Trademarks and Brands are Adequately Protected in the UK
Ensure Your Trademarks and Brands are Adequately Protected in the UK
By Procopio Partner Lisel Ferguson
As we all know, on January 1, 2020, the United Kingdom (UK) left the European Union (EU) under Brexit. There hasn’t been an immediate impact on trademark protection as a result of this change. However, if you have a EU trademark and you fail to “clone” your EU mark in the UK, you will eventually lose that trademark’s UK protection.
To preserve UK protection, you must file a comparable UK trade mark application by September, 30 2021, based on your existing or pending EU trademark.
We are currently actively doing that for our clients, working with foreign associates providing a 50% discount for such filings between now and the deadline.
Assuming the application doesn’t encounter significant objections nor any third-party oppositions, the prosecution costs will also be done at a 50% discount.
The application will be examined by the U.K. Intellectual Property Office (UKIPO) as per a normal national filing. If you take advantage of cloning into the UK during the nine-month period, you retain the filing date of the original EU trademark. This is the great benefit of cloning.
If you have questions or are interested in cloning of any of your EU marks, please do not hesitate to contact me at (619) 515-3207 or lisel.ferguson@procopio.com. For other questions or inquiries, please contact us by clicking here.
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