Brussels, 23/07/2014 (Agence Europe) - On Wednesday 23 July, the Council of the EU reached political agreement in principle on the revision of the Community trademark system, which paves the way for inter-institutional negotiations with the European Parliament (see EUROPE 10816).
“Today's agreement on the EU trademark package in Coreper is crucial for the competitiveness of the European economy. Trademark-intensive industries generate more than one third of the Union's total GDP and more than one fifth of the jobs in the EU”, stressed Italian Secretary of State for European Affairs Sandro Gozi.
The most-debated provisions include the fate of goods (e.g. medicines) suspected of infringing European or national trademark law and in transit through the EU. The compromise reached by the Italian Presidency reaches common ground between the positions of the countries (the United Kingdom, the Netherlands) which are concerned at a possible increase in time and administrative burdens and those of other countries (Spain, France) which wish to minimise the economic injury to intellectual property rights holders. The national customs authorities will be able to retain the goods. In order for the suspect items to be released, it will be the responsibility of their owners to prove that the owners of registered trademarks have not prohibited the products from moving to the final destination third country.
Another hotly-debated issue was how to divide up the small fortune generated by the Office for Harmonisation in the Internal Market (OHIM), the European agency responsible for registering community trademarks. The United Kingdom and the Netherlands argued for the profits to return to the budgets of the member states. In line with the European Commission's preferred approach, the compromise put forward by the Italian Presidency brings in the following rule: within a maximum envelope of 20% of the OHIM revenue, at least 10% of annual revenue will be allocated to cooperation projects between the European agency and the national trademark offices and at least 5% of the annual income will be used to fund a regime to offset the trademark registration costs paid out by the national offices.
Additionally, in order to create a legal basis to prevent excessive budget surpluses from piling up within OHIM, the Council has authorised the budgetary committee of the European agency directly to transfer the surpluses to the Community budget.
With its adoption in February of the Wikström report (see EUROPE 11028), the European Parliament has agreed its position ahead of the inter-institutional negotiations. The Swedish Liberal Cecilia Wikström may once again be in charge of this dossier under the new Parliament. (MB)