UKIPO update on comparable UK trademarks to be automatically granted from current EU trademarks

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UKIPO update on comparable UK trademarks to be automatically granted from current EU trademarks

02 September 2020

The UKIPO has informed the Anti-Counterfeiting Group of some practical steps that it will take when issuing a comparable UK registered trademark for each current EU registered trademark after IP Completion Day on 31 December 2020. The UK's departure from the EU means that the UKIPO will be creating over 2 million new UK trademarks and designs.

The full Anti-Counterfeiting Group update can be accessed here. The UKIPO guidance outlines that:

The UKIPO will publish a general notice on its website around 31 December 2020 (in all EU languages) informing EU rights owners that they now own a comparable UK trademark.
The UKIPO does not intend to send right owners individual lists of the new UK trademarks that they will own.
Each new UK trademark will be numbered with an identical registration number as the related EU trade mark it is granted from, but it shall be prefixed with “009”.
The UKIPO will not be sending out new UK trademark certificates to rights owners. A rights owner can search for its new UK trademarks on the UKIPO database and print details of such rights if needed.

For more of our analysis of Brexit's impact on intellectual property law and procedure please see the Related Materials publications to the right of this text.

Authored by Sahira Khwaja and Peter Elkin