Important news on IP rights after Brexit
The UK is leaving the EU on January 31, 2020.
As a result, there will be no changes on patents, but for holders of EU and IR (designating the EU) trademark and design. However, these changes will not take effect within 2020.
The Withdrawal Agreement, recently concluded between the UK and the EU, provides a transition period until
December 31, 2020.
It stipulates that EU law remains applicable to and in the UK until this date, in order to allow both parties to negotiate further arrangements.
Consequently, any changes to EU and IR (designating the EU) trademark and design rights as regards the UK will not take place in 2020. No rights will be lost as a result of Brexit.
In particular, the transition period extends to the EU Regulations and their implementing instruments as regards the European Union Trademarks (EUTM), Registered Community Designs (RCD), Unregistered Community Designs Regulations (UCD) as well as to International Trademark Registrations (IR) and International Designs (ID) as far as designating the EU.
Therefore, among others, all substantive and procedural provisions and the rules concerning representation in proceedings before the EUIPO continue to apply. In consequence, all proceedings before the EUIPO involving grounds of refusal pertaining to the territory of the UK, earlier rights originating from the UK, or parties/representatives domiciled in the UK will run as they did before, at least until December 31, 2020.
In this context, we also refer to the official websites of the EUIPO https://euipo.europa.eu/ohimportal/en/Brexit-q-and-a and the UK IPO https://www.gov.uk/transition.
We will further provide you with more detailed information on the situation as from 1 January 2021 once the legal positions for this period have been finally determined.
If you have already decided to maintain your EU trademark and/or design rights also in the UK after December 31, 2020 and/or to acquire new trademark/design rights in the EU and/or UK in 2020, please inform us as soon as possible, in order to allow us to assist you in due time and to avoid unwanted loss of your rights as from January 01, 2021.