The Montana iP Trademark Blog

In a recent interview in the Daily Telegraph newspaper, he said that whilst there had been an overall decline in applications of 6 per cent for the first quarter of 2009, British applications are down by 25 per cent. In response, it is perhaps encouraging to see that, as of 1st May, OHIM reduced its official fees for filing and registering a trade mark online from 1600Euros to 900Euros. 

Whilst the filing volumes of Community Trademarks are based on a wide range of economic factors and (one would hope) not driven solely by registration costs, it will be interesting to see if this reduction has any impact on filing rates in the coming months. The UK Intellectual Property Office certainly seem to think so, as can be seen from their 9 March press release when they announced their plans to begin a review of their fees and services with a public consultation. The overall thrust of the announcement is to seek reductions in the costs and ease of registration whilst ensuring the quality of services provided by the Office continue to be improved. Potential savings to UK businesses are estimated at £700,000 per annum which the Office hope will help reverse the 12 per cent downturn in 2008 UK filing rates.

With the apparent increase in the number of businesses out there who have not sought registration of their trademarks, can this all be about fee levels? Since trademark registration fees provide a 10 year period of protection for what is, for many businesses, one of their most valuable business assets, even when you add on trade mark attorney fees this probably equates to an annual equivalent of less than they spend on biscuits or having the executive car fleet washed. Aside from an expected decrease in the more "speculative" type of applications filed by the larger corporations in less lean times, are smaller businesses really making decisions about registering their brand names as trademarks solely based on fees?

Links: 

Interview with Wubbo de Boer