From 23 March 2016, the Office for Harmonization in the Internal Market (OHIM) will be called the “European Union Intellectual Property Office” and the term Community trade mark will be replaced by “European Union trade mark” or “EU trade mark”.
These amendments are introduced by the Regulation of the European Parliament and of the Council of 16 December 2015 and aim to bring the terminology used in accordance with the Lisbon Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union.
The Office for Harmonization in the Internal Market was created as a decentralized agency of the European Union in order to provide protection for two objects of intellectual property (Community trade mark and registered Community design) for the benefit of businesses and innovators in the EU and beyond.
The Regulation establishing the Office for Harmonization in the Internal Market was adopted by the Council of the European Union in December 1993 and revised in 2009.
Since its establishment, the main task of the Office was the registration of trademarks and design. Recently, OHIM’s mission was also extended to the European Observatory on Infringements of Intellectual Property Rights.
Entrusted to OHIM in June 2012, the Observatory gathers representatives of public and private sector in the fight against piracy and counterfeiting. Thus, the Office for Harmonization in the Internal Market has become an active participant in the next stage of development of the field of intellectual property, namely contributing to the enforcement of rights on creativity and innovation results, after they were registered.
OHIM registers annually approximately 100 thousand trademarks and almost 75 thousand industrial designs, providing protection to companies and natural persons in a market with over 500 million consumers.