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Client information
Brexit and the consequences for trademarks and designs
On 31.12.2020, the United Kingdom will leave the European Union.
European Union trademarks and Community designs will thus lose their effectiveness in the United Kingdom. The same applies to the EU parts of international trademarks and designs.
However, the UK Patent Office will create a UK “clone” for all EU trademarks and EU designs registered at the turn of the year, the file number of which will also include the official registration number of the European Intellectual Property Office (EUIPO). The resulting national, British IP rights take over the filing and priority dates of the EU IP rights and are henceforth autonomous and independent of the underlying EU IP rights. They must therefore also be renewed separately. We will create corresponding data records for this purpose and will remind you in the future of both the renewal dates due for the underlying EU IP rights and the renewal dates for the “cloned” UK trademarks and designs. There are no official fees and we will also prepare the aforementioned records and additional renewal reminders for you free of charge.
For applications of EU trademarks and EU designs which have not yet led to registration at the turn of the year, the UK Patent Office does not create such a “clone”. A nine-month transition period ending Sept. 30, 2021, applies to the conversion of these applications into corresponding U.K. applications, also retaining the filing and priority dates. We will remind owners of all affected applications of this deadline early next year.
European patents will not be affected by the United Kingdom’s withdrawal from the EU, as the European Patent Office is not an authority of the European Union. The United Kingdom will remain a member of the European Patent Convention.
Patent Attorneys Charrier Rapp & Liebau