January, 2021. Brexit May Affect Your EU Trademark Rights in the UK but Not Your EU Patents: As a result of “Brexit,” and effective as of Jan. 1, 2021, the U.K. left the EU Intellectual Property Office (EUIPO)—not the European Patent Office (EPO), which is not the same (it operates under the European Patent Convention that is separate from the E.U. treaty.) Therefore, Brexit appears to only affect trademarks that were registered at the EUIPO, not patents at the EPO. The UK IPO has automatically “cloned” the EUIPO registered marks and entered them into the UK IPO system as U.K. trademark registrations. For pending EUIPO marks, a “clone” UK application will only be created if a request is filed with the UKIPO before September 30, 2021 with a fee payment. It is reported that cloned registrations applications will maintain their original filing and priority dates. This means that the newly created UK registrations need to be separately maintained and enforced.
Brexit May Affect Your EU Trademark Rights in the UK
