BUSINESS BRIEF: POLAND


“ONLY A POLISH PATENT ATTORNEY CAN BE A PROXY IN PROCEEDINGS BEFORE THE PPO SO FOREIGN COMPANIES MUST USE A POLISH PROXY.”


What are the costs for registering a trademark, and what are the costs of defending it?


Te total cost of obtaining a Polish national trademark registration in one class, including official fees but excluding the cost of priority claiming and possible defence of the application, usually does not exceed €600. Te costs of obtaining a multiclass national trademark registration are higher, and depend on the number of classes.


Te total costs of obtaining a CTM registration in one, two or three classes, including the official fees, but excluding costs of possible opposition proceedings, usually do not exceed €1,500. Te total costs of preparing and filing a response to the provisional refusal of acceptance of an international trademark protection usually do not exceed €350. Our fees for representing our clients in opposition and invalidation proceedings before the PPO and OHIM are usually calculated based on our hourly rate of €200.


What are the key threats to trademark owners, and what is the best strategy for dealing with infringement?


Counterfeiting and online infringement are the key threats to trademark owners in Poland. On the one hand, we still have to deal with the simple counterfeiting of consumer goods marked with popular trademarks; mostly imported. On the other hand, we have to deal with the online infringement of trademark rights conducted in a much more subtle way.


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What are the most common mistakes trademark owners make?


Applicants are oſten not well prepared to indicate goods and/or services to be marked with their trademarks. Tey plan trademark filings without taking into account the likely future development of their companies.


Moreover, they fail to distinguish between filing an application and obtaining trademark protection. As a result, products are marked with an


have been registered, when an application has yet to be approved.


® have


Trademark owners try to use rights deriving from a newly-issued trademark registration against competitors that


lawfully used similar unregistered trademarks for many years.


Have there been any changes to the trademark law in the last 12 months? Online procedures relating to patent or trademark filings and the exchange of official correspondence in many other matters have been introduced by the PPO. Tis has made progress quicker.


Agnieszka Śnieżko is a partner and co-founder of WTS Patent Attorneys. She can be contacted at: sniezko@wtspatent.pl


Rafał Witek is a partner and co-founder of WTS Patent Attorneys. He can be contacted at: witek@wtspatent.pl


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Agnieszkanieko is a lawyer and a Polish and European patent and trademark attorney. In 1996 she graduated from the law faculty at the Lublin Catholic University; from 1998 to 2002 she worked in the largest Warsaw IP agency; in 2003 was a scholarship holder at the Max Planck Institute for Innovation and Competition in Munich. She is a member of the PCPA, EPI, INTA, ECTA and PTMG. She has had experience as a representative in application and litigation proceedings relating to trademarks, and as an adviser in proceedings against IP rights infringements and unfair competition.


Rafał Witek is a Polish and European patent attorney specialising in patent prosecution and litigation in the fields of biotechnology and pharmacy. He has specialised in legal advice relating to the identification of and minimising of patent risks inherent in the market entry of pharmaceuticals. He has conducted many court processes before the PPO and civil courts, in cases concerning patent invalidation and infringement.


World Intellectual Property Review Annual 2014 131


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