European Trade Mark Registration Fees set to be reduced by 40%

March 6, 2009

OHIM, the European Office for trade marks and design registration, has announced that it will slash fees by 40%. This price change could take place in a matter of weeks.

At the moment the price of filing for a CTM online is €1600 for an online filing and €1750 for a paper application but after the fee cuts will be reduced to €900 online and €1,050.  A Community Trade Mark covers the entire EU even if the trader is only selling in one member country.

Some commentators are saying that with the fee cut will reduce the amount of UK trade marks that are filed. The official fees for registering a UK trade mark in one class are £200.

In fact, the fee reduction was originally opposed by national trade mark offices who feared that they would receive far fewer applications and fees as a result. To mitigate the problems this could cause, OHIM agreed to pass a portion of the fees to national trade mark offices. The fee reduction is being used to help alleviate a €300 million surplus budget at OHIM which has resulted because of the great success of the CTM.