Introduction

• Author: Office for Harmonization in the Internal Market
• Profession: European Commission

The amendments to current applicable regulations which occurred in 2004 and 2005 have modified many of their Articles. We therefore decided to launch a third edition of the monolingual version of the Selected Instruments relating to the Community Trade Mark, where we have incorporated all the changes.

I therefore take great pleasure in now releasing, five years after the second edition appeared, this up-dated third edition of the monolingual version.

It contains the consolidated texts of the Community Trade Mark Regulation, the Implementing Regulation, the Fees Regulation and the Rules of Procedure of the Boards of Appeal, as well as the most relevant Decisions and Communications. Some texts which are no longer relevant have been omitted. A substantial number of amendments to the Regulation itself entered into force immediately. Another part of amendments became operative after the respective provisions of the Implementing Regulation have been adopted or changed and have entered into force. Therefore we added the footnotes with the date of the entry into force of each amended Article.

In addition, the Harmonization Directive on the law of trade marks and the provisions of the Paris Convention, the Madrid Protocol and the TRIPS Agreement relevant to trade marks have been added.

The only official texts of the Regulations are the ones published in the Official Journal of the European Union. These official texts are not completely free of clerical errors or translation discrepancies. In this publication, only obvious spelling and punctuation errors have been removed. Otherwise, the official text has been maintained and the issue is addressed in a footnote. The footnotes also contain references to the Decisions and Communications of the President of the Office, and to other relevant texts. These footnotes, which have been added by the Office for the purposes of this publication, are printed in normal type and are preceded by a number. The footnotes in italics are part of the official texts. The left column contains references to other pertinent Articles or Rules. Articles or Rules cited in a provision are, however, not cited in the references again.

Last but not least, the Regulation on Community Designs (Council Regulation (EC) No 6/2002 of 12 December 2001) which entered into force on 6 March 2002, constitutes an event of major importance for the Office, which is competent for the registration of Community designs as from 2003. The Office has produced and published a collection of texts concerning the Community design in a format similar to this publication.

Wubbo de Boer

President of the Office for Harmonization in the Internal Market (Trade Marks and Designs)