ROMANIA TRADEMARKS


by third parties. Consequently, each time the owner of a later trademark invoked his rights, for example in an enforcement case, the owner of the prior trademark had to file a request for cancellation of the later trademark, and infringement proceedings could resume only once the latter trademark had been cancelled.


If the impact of the recent judgment is to be followed closely by Romanian courts, this would trigger, in my view, further weakness to the trademark system in general. Everybody can obtain registration more easily now, knowing that the owners of earlier rights who can afford to monitor constantly and oppose are companies with large legal budgets. But once the registration is obtained, it is no longer worth as much. At any time the owner can face an interdiction from any of the previous owners of similar trademarks, in the absence of any previous cancellation proceeding against the mark.


Te requisite of a preliminary cancellation proceeding was good because, due to its costs, it made potential claimants think twice before acting. Now, legal suits targeting the use of later marks will most probably multiply, many of


them by abuse of right from the owners of the earlier rights.


Under these circumstances, one could expect higher uncertainty in respect to the validity of any trademark registration and higher legal costs to defend it against newer and older trademarks.


Turning back to the aims of the EC, namely increasing legal certainty, or making the trademark system more accessible and efficient in terms of low costs and complexity, 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. And, since the judgment is expected to produce effects in all EU member states, the most-affected will be the SMEs, as they have obviously fewer resources for protecting and defending their trademarks. n


Raluca Vasilescu is a partner at Cabinet M. Oproiu. She can be contacted at: raluca@oproiu.ro


Raluca Vasilescu is a patent and trademark attorney, and a European patent attorney. She started her career in IP in 1995, when she jointly founded Cabinet M. Oproiu with Mrs Oproiu. She is a member of the anti-counterfeiting committee and a member of the council of ECTA, president of the Romanian Chamber of Patent Attorneys and vice president of the Romanian group of AIPPI. Vasilescu handles patent and trademark matters from prosecution to enforcement. She is the author of numerous articles in the field of IP and of the Romanian chapter in Enforcement of Intellectual Property Rights Trough Border Measures published by Oxford University Press in 2012.


PATENTSERVIS Praha a.s. Patent & Trade Mark Agency


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www.jvpatents.com World Intellectual Property Review September/October 2013 139


J.Varbanov & Partners European and Bulgarian


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