Following the United Kingdom’s exit from the European Union on 31 December 2020 “Brexit”, EU Trade Marks and Designs ceased to cover the United Kingdom. In their place the UK Intellectual Property Office created cloned rights termed as “comparable UK trade marks’ (or design rights) that retain the same priority, filing, seniority and renewal dates as the original European right.
This process left European Union rights holders with a comparable right in the UK for each EU right they owned on Brexit day. In effect if you had registered 100 EU trade marks at Brexit day, you would now have 100 comparable UK trade marks. As a leading European IP law firm, Meissner Bolte itself had a portfolio of European Union Trade Marks on Brexit day and has therefore also acquired a comparable portfolio in the United Kingdom.
Up until now Meissner Bolte has directly administered these marks from their German office and retained their German address for service, as comparable trade marks and designs had been exempt from the requirement to provide a UK Address for Service, i.e. meaning we could maintain our German address. However, as highlighted in our previous article this exemption will no longer apply from 1 January 2024. Therefore we are now transferring responsibility to our UK office who will act as representative for our UK trade marks registrations, including UK trade mark registration no. UK00800956142 for Meissner Bolte.
The last few years have shown that the cloned rights recognised at Brexit day are becoming increasingly independent. Not only as the basis for active opposition and infringement proceedings, but also as the subject of passive proceedings, these rights now definitively follow different procedural rules, which make it advisable for trademark owners to be assisted locally by suitably qualified and experienced lawyers. In this respect, we are following the same advice that we give to our own client’s and ensuring that our own Meissner Bolte trade mark has a dedicated UK representative – in this respect we are no different to any other internationally active company says Dr Claus Dieter Opatz, who is one of Meissner Bolte's Managing Partners in Germany.
We will be documenting the process of appointing Meissner Bolte (UK) as the address for service on our Linkedin feed and Alexander Pickles Chartered Trade Mark Attorney in our UK office will be taking over as file manager for Mesisner Bolte’s UK portfolio. Alexander says: “the UK Office is well placed to directly manage the UK part of the Meissner Bolte trade mark portfolio and we are pleased to have the Meissner Bolte brand and heritage entrusted into our care. This trust is a testament to the effectiveness of our cross jurisdictional approach and we have big plans for the future of the Meissner Bolte brand and also UK trade mark registration no. UK00800956142 – watch this space”.
Meissner Bolte is well placed to assist European Union rights holders in administering their portfolios and our dedicated UK office allows us to seamlessly manage the cloned comparable trade marks in the United Kingdom.
