Community Trademarks (CTM)

What is a CTM?

A Community Trade Mark (introduced in 1996) is a registered trademark that is valid across all of the countries of the European Union, registered with OHIM. There are a few options to consider if you are looking to obtain trademark protection in some or all of the countries of the EU.

Option 1: Country-by-country

If you only want to register your trademark in a couple of EU countries it may be advisable for you apply for those countries only through the  Madrid System, or via “direct national filings”. This is sometimes called a “country-by-country” approach.

Option 2: The “all or nothing approach”

However, if you are wishing to cover a number or most EU countries its worth considering applying for a CTM. This means that if you make a CTM application you apply for all Member countries not just a selection as you would, using option 1 (above).

The down-side of taking the “all-or-nothing approach” is that if a ground for refusal applies only with respect to one Member State of the Community, the OHIM will refuse the CTM application for all member states. For this reason, we would strongly recommend conducting trade mark searches covering the EU before embarking on this strategy.

The up-side (besides it only costing 900 Euros in application fees, no registration fee) is that if you do take this all or nothing approach and it’s rejected you can still take option 1 and maintain the filing date of the CTM (for those countries not rejected or refused).