CP11 Common Communication and Common Practice – New Mark Types

Within the framework of the Convergence Programme promoted by the European Intellectual Property Office (EUIPO) to harmonize practices at the European level, national offices and the EUIPO have published a series of common communications and criteria relating to certain aspects of trade mark examination. The latest publication was launched on 14 April 2021 and concerns a Common Practice with regard to the new, non-traditional mark types introduced as part of the Transposition of the EU Trademark Directive.

This Common Practice is made public through the Common Communication with the purpose of further increasing transparency, legal certainty, and predictability for the benefit of examiners and users alike. The Common Practice aims to provide guidance with regard to the examination of formal requirements and grounds for refusal and/or invalidity of new types of trade marks namely, sound, motion, multimedia and hologram marks, and the new ways of representing them by taking into account the impact of the elimination of the graphic representation. The IPOI fully supports these initiatives and actively participated in the formulation of this new Common Practice, which can be found on our Trade Marks Practice and Procedures page.