EU Commission Monitor - 05/12/08

Europe online: new media for a new age
Speech by Margot Wallström - Vice-President of the European Commission at Seminar on Online and Multimedia Communication in Madrid, 2nd December 2008 [Europa]

Trademark success
"One success story in the EU's intellectual property regime, the Office for Harmonization in the Internal Market, based in Alicante, Spain, is highlighted in this special report. The office has just registered its 500,000th trademark and has recently lowered its fees, helped by a healthy financial balance sheet.

But if there is one glaring disappointment in the EU's set-up for intellectual property rights, it is the failure to agree a single Community patent. The Commission's work programme for 2009 says that “the lack of a cost-effective, single patent remains an obvious shortcoming of the single market”. Business groups have long called for a unified patent approvals procedure that would substantially lower costs for inventors and innovators, but still some national governments resist the idea. Nevertheless, the case for a simplified approvals and litigation regime remains compelling." [EuropeanVoice]

A successful EU organisation
"The Office for Harmonisation in the Internal Market has approved more than 500,000 applications for EU-wide trademarks since it was created in 1996.

The Office for Harmonisation in the Internal Market (OHIM) is not the best known of EU organisations but it is arguably one of the most successful. The office, which grants Community-wide trademarks, has just approved its 500,000th application. It finances itself entirely from the fees it charges for trademark registration and is expecting to generate a surplus of €65 million this year. It has already built up reserves of €350m, which have made it possible to cut the registration fee to less than €1,000, down from €1,700 since 2005 and €2,075 from 1996 when the office became operational." [EuropeanVoice]