General

What are trademarks?

Trademarks are used to distinguish a company's goods and services from those of other undertakings. They often also have a promotional function or one related to reputation, quality or guarantee.

A trademark can be either a word (e.g. 'Coca Cola'), a picture (e.g. the Shell logo), a shape (e.g. packaging), a sound (e.g. the Intel processors tune), a colour (e.g. the colour green used by KPN), a smell (e.g. 'the smell of fresh-cut grass' for tennis balls) or a combination of any of these.

 

How to obtain a trademark right?

In order to qualify for trademark protection, a trademark must usually be registered. Trademarks may be registered with various official organisations: with the Benelux Office for Intellectual Property for protection within the Benelux countries; with the Office for Harmonisation of the Internal Market (OHIM) in Alicante for protection within the European Union; and with the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) in Geneva for international protection. In some countries, trademarks may be registered only with national trademarks offices.

Upon applying for a trademark registration, the applicant must indicate to which goods or services it must apply. Dozens of product and service classes have been created for this purpose, from which a choice must be made.

The application for a trademark registration is only the first step. Trademarks must meet certain requirements. First of all, they must have a sufficiently distinctive nature. Also, they may not conflict with public decency or public policy, may not deceive the public and may not be descriptive (e.g. 'liquid soap' for liquid soap). Trademark applications may be refused on any one of these grounds.

Once a trademark application has been filed, the applicant has six months in which to register it elsewhere while maintaining the validity of the first registration date. That right is known as the 'right of priority'.