Administrative annulment
Administrative annulment of registered trademark is now possible according to article 30. a of the Trade Mark Act, legalized 15 June 2012. Before, annulment was possible only through court case proceeding. Main requirement for annulment is 5 years consecutive non-use of the contested registered trademark. This law amendment is in harmony with Nordic IP Procedure.
PTO Trademark Class Heading Decision.
With consideration to the decision of The European Court from 19 June 2012, case C-307/10 IP TRANSLATOR and in harmony with WIPO´S interpretation and OHIM, the PTO from date 1 January 2014 will interpretate the Class Heading of the Nice Classification System as regards goods and services in that way that the heading includes exclusively the goods or services which are specified.- Before the applicant would obtain trademark protection for all the goods/services in the registered class, by just identifying the class heading, refer the Nice Agreement of Classification of Goods and Services, which Iceland is a member of.
Abolition of relative grounds examination. – Future developments.
In the Nordic Countries (except in Denmark) the practice is that the PTO execute ex officio relative grounds examination. Most of the EU countries have now abolished ex officio relative grounds examination. It is not expected in the Nordic Countries that the corresponding PTO will cease ex officio relative grounds examination.
Amendments of patent law, practice
Ceasing of publication of new patent applications
All new patent application were before published in the ISPTO monthly Gazette, next month after submitting the patent application with the ISPTO. This amendment is in harmony with streamlining the patent procedure with the other European official patent procedure.
Ólafur Ragnarsson
Attorney at law-IP legal adviser
European Patent Attorney