OHIM registered a record number of Community trademarks

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March 12, 2008

Record number of Community trade marks and designs registered through OHIM

According to the statistics of the Office for Harmonization in the Internal Market (OHIM), a record number of Community trademarks and designs were again registered in 2007. The statistics for 2007 also show that the productivity of the Office has significantly improved and timescales for registrations have shortened.

Similar growth has continued for the past four years. The growth rate of Community trademark and design applications during the last four years is 50 % and, over the same period, the productivity of OHIM has risen by almost 60 %. The average time taken to register a Community trademark has fallen to 13 months and the average time to register a design is now six weeks.

Last year, OHIM dealt with about 90,000 applications for Community trademarks and about 80,000 applications for the registered Community design. About two-thirds of applications came from within the European Community area. During the existence of the Community trademark system, more than 420,000 trademarks have already been registered through OHIM.

Statistics on trademark and design filings show that Germany led the list of top filer countries with 15,300 Community trademark applications and 17,000 Community design applications. In Community trademark filings, the USA ranked second with 14,000 applications and Great Britain was third with 9,300 applications. In community design filings, Italy ranked second with 9,700 design applications and France third with 6,300 design applications. In 2007, the number of Community trademark applications filed by Finnish applicants was about 725 and the number of Community design applications filed by applicants from Finland was about 615.

The productivity and returns of the Office for Harmonization in the Internal Market (OHIM) have continued to improve with growth. In 2007, OHIM's total income was about 200 million € compared with an expenditure of about 138 million €. Since OHIM is a non-profit organization, there are pressures to reduce official fees. A first fee reduction concerning trademarks was implemented in 2005. The European Commission has recommended further reductions.

Further information at OHIM website. Our trademark attorneys will also be pleased to answer your questions.