European Trademark Reform Approved by European Parliament
Client Alert | 1 min read | 12.18.15
On December 15, 2015, the European Parliament adopted a "package" of two documents relating to trademark reform: a Directive and a Regulation. (We have already covered the content of the reform package in "The European Trademark Reform: Key Changes Brand Owners Need to Know," C&M Client Alert, July 2015). This package will definitely strengthen the system and allow better protection for right holders’ brands and their reputation. It will make registering trademarks "cheaper, quicker and more reliable," said the Parliament.
Following the European Parliament vote, the legislative process is now over. The "package" will soon be published in the Official Journal of the European Union. The Directive and the Regulation will enter into force on the 20th and 90th day, respectively, following the day of publication.
One of the key changes affecting brand owners concerns the designation and classification of goods and services for the purpose of registering trademarks. It will no longer be possible to simply use Class Headings to cover all goods and services that fall within that class. Instead, brand owners will need to specify the particular goods and services for which registration is sought. Brand owners who applied for Community trademarks before June 22, 2012 and whose trademarks cover an entire Nice Class Heading will have six months to specify which goods or services from the Nice alphabetical list they intended their trademark to cover. The new rules will also provide better means to fight against counterfeit/infringing goods in transit through EU territory.
Brand owners should take these new rules into account and focus on the key changes with regard to their existing and planned European trademarks.
Contacts
Insights
Client Alert | 8 min read | 06.30.25
AI Companies Prevail in Path-Breaking Decisions on Fair Use
Last week, artificial intelligence companies won two significant copyright infringement lawsuits brought by copyright holders, marking an important milestone in the development of the law around AI. These decisions – Bartz v. Anthropic and Kadrey v. Meta (decided on June 23 and 25, 2025, respectively), along with a February 2025 decision in Thomson Reuters v. ROSS Intelligence – suggest that AI companies have plausible defenses to the intellectual property claims that have dogged them since generative AI technologies became widely available several years ago. Whether AI companies can, in all cases, successfully assert that their use of copyrighted content is “fair” will depend on their circumstances and further development of the law by the courts and Congress.
Client Alert | 3 min read | 06.30.25
Client Alert | 3 min read | 06.26.25
FDA Targets Gene Editing Clinical Trials in China and other “Hostile Countries”
Client Alert | 3 min read | 06.26.25
