International trademark treaty being brought up to date
This article was originally published in Clinica
Executive Summary
The revision of a key international treaty in the field of trademarks, the Trademark Law Treaty (TLT), is due to be adopted at the World Intellectual Property Organisation (WIPO) conference, being held in Singapore next month. The proposed revision, which deals mainly with procedural aspects of trademark registration and licensing, will help to ensure that brand owners using the trademark system benefit from greater flexibilities and efficiencies in the delivery of trademark registration services. The revised treaty will also bring the existing TLT in line with the technology advances of the past decade, with the inclusion of provisions such as the electronic filing of trademark applications and communications. Negotiations leading up to the conference have shown a good degree of consensus among member states on the text of the proposed treaty.