There are currently 15 member states of the European
Union. These are Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Finland,
France, Germany, Greece, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg,
Netherlands, Portugal, Spain, Sweden and the United
Kingdom. A Community trademark registration covers
all of these countries. Ten additional countries
are about to join the European Union. This is likely
to happen on May 1st, 2004. These are Cyprus, Czech
Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Malta,
Poland, Slovakia and Slovenia. They will, as of
that date, be included within the scope of the Community
Trade Mark Regulation and there are no transitional
provisions.
Enlargement has the potential to make the national
markets of the new states commercially much more
accessible and important. Trademark owners who
may have discounted one or more of these countries
in the past should now reconsider and take a closer
look in order to decide whether they should be
taking steps to protect their trademark in these
new countries, either by filing national applications
or, preferably, by filing CTM applications.
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