The Office for Harmonization in the Internal Market (OHIM), based in Alicante, is the official European agency responsible for the registration of trademarks and designs and guarantees their protection in 27 countries of the European Union.
The OHIM issues certified copies of Community trademark or design applications and of the documents in the case files handled by the Office, and certified extracts of the Register of Community Trade Marks. In a number of third countries (outside the European Union), however, those certified copies need to be authenticated or legalised in order to be admitted as the basis for a priority claim before the national offices of those countries or as grounds for any kind of claim before their authorities. Accordingly, such legalisation must be requested from the Representation of the European Commission in Spain. As laid down by the European Commission(1), it is the Head of the Representation who is authorised to legalise the signatures of OHIM officials.
We describe below the steps required to legalise an OHIM signature, but we also recommend that you contact the embassy or consulate in Spain 
[540 KB] of the country concerned to clarify the procedures you need to carry out, bearing in mind that procedures vary from country by country.
(1) Under European Commission Notice C (2000) 2665 of 19 September 2000 published in the Official Journal of the European Communities on 19 January 2001 (2001/C 17/06).
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