OHIM
The Office for Harmonization in the Internal Market (OHIM) is a European Community body with its own legal personality. Its task is to promote and manage trademarks and design rights within the European Union. The Community courts - the Court of First Instance and the Court of Justice of the European Communities - are responsible for overseeing the legality of OHIM's decisions.
Meeting Forums
We participate at both Administrative Board meetings, Budget Committee meetings and liaison meetings between OHIM and the national trademark and design offices.
1) Administrative Board and Budget Committee meetingsThe participants are composed of a representative from each member state and one representative from the Commission. The meetings are held every six months. In addition, the two boards have so-called joint meetings.
2) Liaison meetings between OHIM and the national offices
At these meetings both legal and technical aspects of the Community trademark system and the Community design system are examined in depth. The meetings are based on active participation by the member states. We aim to play an active part in the meetings as well as in deciding the agenda.
The current discussion of trademark fees
One of the most important issues discussed at the Administrative Board and at the Budget Committee is the Commission’s communication of 22 December 2006 proposing the introduction of a regular and automatic review of the Community trademark fees. The purpose of the proposal is to ensure a reasonable balance in OHIM’s budget. As a self-financing EU agency, OHIM’s budget is independent from the Community budget and subject to the requirement that the revenue and expenditure in the budget must be balanced. OHIM’s budget is mainly funded by the fees paid by businesses for its services.
However, the issue is primarily dealt with in Brussels, where it was on the agenda at the 2801st Competitiveness Council meeting on the 21 and 22 May 2007. The outcome of the meeting was in particular that the Council calls on the Commission to:
- immediately propose a reduction of the fees charged by OHIM
- start working on a comprehensive study on the overall functioning of the Community trade mark system to be completed as a matter of priority
Generally, Denmark is in favour of fee reductions and we agree that we have to react to OHIM’s growing surplus. At the same time, we believe that a thorough analysis of the functioning of the European trademark system should be given high priority. The purpose hereof is to establish a common ground for making the right decisions as to how we can best enhance the European industries’ global competitiveness within marketing and branding. We see the surplus within the European trademark system as an opportunity to deal with this important issue. As part of setting the future European framework, we find it important to enhance the relationship between OHIM and the national offices in order to sustain the complementarity between the options for trademark protection.
The next step in the process will be the presentation by the Commission of a proposal concerning the reduction of the specific fees payable to OHIM. The proposal is expected later this year or in the beginning of 2008. The proposal will be accompanied by thorough impact assessment. The final adoption of the reductions will probably take place in 2008.
Another step is a tender for the preparation of the study on the overall functioning of the Community trade mark system. The Commission expects to publish the tender later this year.
Questions
If you have any questions to the above text or to our OHIM work in general, you are welcome to contact Anja M. Bech Hornecker.
Last update: 21 August 2007
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