No 2 (February 96/Février 96/Februar 96)

Applications for Community Trade Marks may be filed as from 1 January 1996 at the Office for harmonisation in the Internal Market in Alicante. In order to make the Office operational, the Commission adopted on 13 December 1995 two Regulations required for the application of the Community Trade Mark Regulation. The Regulations (EC Official Journal N.L303 of 15/12/1995) concern the procedural rules for filing and registering a Community Trade Mark and the fees applicable.

The first Commission Regulation adopted, referred to as "the Implementing Regulation", contains procedural rules on the filing and registration of Community Trade Marks. It includes rules on the examination of trade mark applications by the Harmonisation Office and opposition proceedings, on the administration of Community Trade Marks, on appeals against decisions of the Office and on proceedings concerning revocation or invalidity of Community Trade Marks.

The second Commission Regulation adopted, referred to as "the Fees Regulation", determines in particular the amount of the fees, payable to the Harmonisation Office and the ways in which they must be paid. In addition, the Regulation empowers the President of the Office, subject to certain conditions, to lay down the charges which may be payable to the Office in respect of services it may render, like the delivery of extracts from the Office's register.

Applications for Community trade mark may be filed as from 1 January 1996. How-ever, the filing date of applications which will be filed between 1 January and 1 April 1996 will be 1 April 1996. The filing date of applications which will be filed after 1 April 1996 will be their date of filing.

The preparatory work on the opening of the Harmonisation Office for the filing of Community Trade Mark applications started in September 1994, almost immediately after the appointment of the President (Jean-Claude Combaldieu) and the two vice-presidents of the Office (Alberto Casado and Alexander Von Mühlendahl) by the EU's Council of Ministers.

TYPE OF FEE	AMOUNT (in ECU's)
Basic fee for the application for registration of a Community trade mark, covering a maximum of three classes of goods or services	975
Opposition fee	350
Basic fee for the registration of a Community trade mark, covering a maximum of three classes of goods and services	1,100
Basic fee for the renewal of an individual mark	2,500
Fee for the application for revocation or for a declaration of invalidity	700
Appeal fee	800

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