THE LETTER'S IN THE POST ...

For those of you who are annoyed by the casual, informal nature of the IPKat's prose, here's something for you that is truly official: a letter from Wubbo de Boer, OHIM President. Interesting bits are in colour.

Communication No 11/04 of the President of the Office of 21 October 2004 on non-binding information about the outcome of the examination proceedings

Over the past two years, the Office managed to speed up the examination process so that a substantial portion of all Community trade mark applications can now pass all the examination steps, namely filing date, classification, formalities and absolute grounds examination, within a couple of months. Translations of the application into the remaining official languages of the European Community, as well as establishment of search reports pursuant to Article 39 CTMR take place separately. The situation today is that for all Community trade mark applications (for those which have passed the examination process without problems, as well as for those for which a dialogue with the applicant was necessary) there is a period of several months needed to prepare translations, complete searches and other ancillary tasks before the application can be published in the Community Trade Marks Bulletin.

The Office has thus decided to send an information letter to the applicant once the examination procedure has been completed with a positive result. Whilst the Office reserves the right to reopen the examination proceeding as long as registration has not yet taken place, this letter will give applicants the assurance that their application has passed the examination process and that the remaining period will only be needed for technical issues. In particular, where the application was in order, the applicant should be informed as soon as possible.

As from the end of October 2004, once the mark has been found acceptable for publication, the Office will send the following letter:

"The examination of your application has been successfully completed. It will now be published once the translations and search reports are available. You will be informed in due time of the particulars of the publication. Meanwhile you can find more information on the situation of your file under http://oami.eu.int/int/en/database/ctm-online.htm.

This letter is sent for information purposes only. The Office reserves the right to re-open the examination if new aspects arise."

The IPKat is delighted that applicants are to be told that their applicants have passed the examination stage. If the only thing this achieves is to stop neurotic CTM applicants phoning up their representatives with increasing frequency to ask what's going on, it will have achieved something highly positive.

More good news letters here