ROMANIA TRADEMARKS
“IT APPEARS THAT THE IMPACT OF THIS JUDGMENT IN THE LONG RUN MAY BE IN THE OPPOSITE DIRECTION: TOWARDS INCREASING LEGAL UNCERTAINTY AND COSTS FOR ALL PARTIES INVOLVED.”
in the course of trade, signs identical with or similar to its trademark extends to a third-party proprietor of a later registered CTM, without the need for that latter mark to have been declared invalid beforehand …”
Romania has a trademark system traditionally based on a strong and vigorous ex officio examination for prior rights. Te amended Trademark Law waived the ex officio examination for relative grounds in May 2010.
Clearly the traditional system helped trademark holders, because a mark, although obtained with greater effort, conferred a comfortably strong level of protection. Indeed the number of cancellation cases lodged before the Municipal Court of Bucharest was among the lowest in EU member states.
Romanian trademark owners, the majority of
them small and medium-sized enterprises
(SMEs), were happy with this, as the cost of legal services was maintained at a reasonably low level. Strangely enough, the old system was in line with many of the aims of the recent proposal for revision of the CTMR as published by the European Commission (EC) in March 2013, that it should be: “accessible and efficient for businesses in terms of lower costs and complexity, greater predictability and legal security”. Only “increased speed” was missing from the picture.
An uncomfortable change
When the amended Trademark Law came into force in 2010, the comfortable life of trademark owners was seriously shaken by a wave of new applications, many of them very similar to old registered marks, some made in good faith,
others in bad faith, for example by applying for registration for similar goods in other classes or in the same class, if not covered by the old registration.
Romanian trademark owners had to multiply their legal expenses to monitor publications, oppose them in the shortened legal period (thus incurring extra fees) and prosecute oppositions. Obviously the opposition rate grew, possibly multiplied by three. Te solidity of the trademark registration suffered a first attack.
In November 2012, the Romanian State Office for Inventions and Trademarks (OSIM), noticing the large number of applications
similar to
registered trademarks, issued an instruction to complete the implementing regulation of the law. Tis included sending information to the owners of the earlier-registered trademarks about the later applications and a disguised version of ex officio examination for prior rights, well wrapped in the clothes of the absolute grounds.
As for the courts, there was a consistent view before and aſter the revised law in 2010, that a trademark registration confers the rights to the owner in respect of unregistered signs used
138 World Intellectual Property Review September/October 2013
www.worldipreview.com
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