What is a Community Trade Mark (CTM) system?
The Community Trademark System treats the whole EU as one nation for the purpose of registering a Community Trade Mark (CTM). By way of a single application to register a CTM the applicant can register its mark in all the 25 countries of the European Union. An applicant for a CTM cannot pick and choose the countries if it wants registration in only some of the countries in the European Union. If a CTM is refused on the basis of a prior right in any one of the member countries of the European Community the CTM cannot be granted as a whole. It follows all-or-none principle. However, an application for a CTM can be converted into a national applications for countries of applicant’s choice (except the countries in which prior rights exist). In that case the applicant will only receive national registration of the specific country and not a CTM. If you need more information on CTM, please contact us and we will get one of our European members of ITC to respond to your query.
