Voorstellen van de Europese Commissie voor een nieuwe merkenverordening en merkenrichtlijn

European Commission, Proposal for a Directive of the European Parliament and of the Council to approximate the laws of the Member States relating to trade marks, COM(2013) 162 final, 27 maart 2013.

"Aim of the proposal: Considered together as a package, the main common objective of this initiative and of the parallel proposal for the amendment to the Regulation is to foster innovation and economic growth by making trade mark registration systems all over the EU more accessible and efficient for businesses in terms of lower costs and complexity, increased speed, greater predictability and legal security. These adjustments dovetail with efforts to ensure coexistence and complementarity between the Union and national trade mark systems.

Specifically, the present initiative to recast the Directive is driven by the following objectives:

- Modernising and improving the existing provisions of the Directive, by amending outdated provisions, increasing legal certainty and clarifying trade mark rights in terms of their scope and limitations;

- Achieving greater approximation of national trade mark laws and procedures with the aim of making them more consistent with the Community trade mark system, by (a) adding further substantive rules and (b) introducing principal procedural rules into the Directive in accordance with provisions contained in the Regulation;

- Facilitating cooperation between the offices of the Member States and OHIM for the purpose of promoting convergence of practices and the development of common tools, by putting in place a legal basis for this cooperation.

(...)The impact assessment carried out for both the review of the Regulation and of the Directive identified two main problems: the first relates to the divergent provisions of the existing regulatory framework, and the second to the low level of cooperation between trade mark offices in the Union. While the latter problem is due to be addressed in the review of the Regulation, the issue of divergent provisions must be dealt with in the review of the Directive."

Lees het voorstel hier.

European Commission, Proposal for a Regulation of the European Parliament and of the Council amending Council Regulation (EC) No 207/2009 on the Community trade mark, COM (2013) 161/2.

"Aim of the proposal: (...) As regards this initiative to revise the Regulation, the Commission is not proposing a new system, but well-targeted modernisation of existing provisions, with these main aims:

- Adapting terminology to the Lisbon Treaty and provisions to the Common Approach on decentralised agencies (see section 5.1);
- Streamlining procedures to apply for and register a European trade mark (see section 5.2);
- Increasing legal certainty by clarifying provisions and removing ambiguities (see section 5.3);
- Establishing an appropriate framework for cooperation between OHIM and national offices for the promoting convergence of practices and developing common tools (see section 5.4);
- Aligning the framework to Article 290 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union (TFEU) (see section 5.5).

(...) The impact assessment identified one main problem the revised Regulation needs to address: the low level of cooperation among trade mark offices in Europe. As explained in the impact assessment, there are many links between the Community trade mark and national trade mark regimes, with direct consequences for both trade mark users and intellectaul property offices. These require a certain level of complementarity between the two systems. To achieve and ensure this, OHIM and National Offices should cooperate closely."

Lees het voorstel hier.