WRITTEN QUESTION E-0406/97 by Arthur Newens (PSE) to the Commission (13 February 1997)

Subject: Intolerable backlog of business at the Office for Harmonization in the Internal Market (Trade Marks & Designs)

Is the Commission aware that the Office for Harmonization in the Internal Market (Trade Marks & Designs) situated in Alicante, Spain, is experiencing unacceptable backlogs of business? Reportedly the backlog of applications at the Community Trade Mark Office is around 40 000 and offers to second experienced staff to assist have apparently been declined. What steps does the Commission propose to take to resolve this intolerable situation?

Answer given by Mr Monti on behalf of the Commission (2 April 1997)

The Commission has informed the Office for harmonization in the internal market about the concerns expressed by the Honourable Member.

It should be recalled that the Office became operational on 1st April 1996. The generally accepted estimate before the opening of the Office was that some 15 000 Community trade mark applications would be filed in 1996. However a final count indicates that in fact around 42 000 applications were received in 1996. This important difference between the estimated figure and the actual number of applications received is the cause of the difficulties presently encountered by the Office.

Following the receipt of a Community trade mark application, the Office must examine whether the application complies with certain formalities. Moreover, the application must be translated into all the other official languages of the Community and the Office must transmit the application to the central industrial property offices of the Member States, which have informed the Office of their decision to operate a search in their own register of national trade marks in respect of Community trade mark applications. After receipt of the search reports of the central industrial property offices of the Member States, the Office must transmit these reports, together with its own Community search report, to the applicant for the Community trade mark. At least one month thereafter, the Office must publish the application for the Community trade mark in its trade marks bulletin in all the official languages of the Community. It is expected that under normal circumstances, once the Office is up to speed, the average time between filing and publication of a Community trade mark application will be around one year.

In order to cope with the unexpectedly high number of applications, the Office has accelerated the installation of its internal automatic trade mark handling system (Euromarc). The dossiers are being encoded immediately and the receipts for all applications are sent out as rapidly as possible. Although there was at one stage a delay of nearly two months, all receipts are now issued within two weeks from the submission of the application. Moreover, additional resources are being made available for the formal examination of trade mark applications.

The recruitment for the operational division of the Office (i.e. examination, opposition and cancellation divisions) has been accelerated. According to its management plan, the Office plans in 1997 to publish 25 000 applications, and 10 000 should be registered (the procedure is completed with registration). The time within which marks will be registered as Community trade marks depends largely on the number of oppositions which will be filed against the registration of these marks and on the handling of these oppositions by the Office as well as the parties involved.

Given the figures indicated for 1997, a significant volume of work will be transferred to 1998. However, the estimated number of new filings in 1998 and the following years is 22 000. This should enable the Office to reduce the backlog in the handling of applications as from 1998. According to the Office's management plan, 41 000 applications will be published and another 38 000 will be registered in 1998. As a consequence, the number of publications which will be carried over to 1999, is 20 000, whereas the number of registrations to be carried over to 1999 is 38 000. Given that only around 22 000 new filings are expected in 1999, the Office should be able to ensure that as from 1999 onwards, the average time between filing and publication of a Community trade mark will be around one year.

The Commission will continue to assist the Office in finding solutions to those problems which arise. The Commission understands that the Office has not received any offers for support through the secondment of staff from central industrial property offices of the Member States.