Doing Business In - International Franchise Association

and the Community Trademark system, administered by OHIM. As of October 1, 2004,
Community Trademark applicants and holders are allowed to apply for international
protection of their trademarks through the filing of an international application under the
Madrid Protocol. Conversely, holders of international registrations under the Madrid
Protocol will be entitled to apply for protection of their trademarks under the Community
Trademark system.
Key Links: http://oami.europa.eu/
http://www.wipo.int/madrid/en
Designs
The EU adopted a Regulation introducing a single Community system for the protection
of designs in December 2001. The Regulation provides for two types of design
protection, directly applicable in each EU Member State: the registered Community
design and the unregistered Community design. Under the registered Community design
system, holders of eligible designs can use an inexpensive procedure to register them
with the EU’s Office for Harmonization in the Internal Market (OHIM), based in Alicante,
Spain. They will then be granted exclusive rights to use the designs anywhere in the EU
for up to twenty-five years. Unregistered Community designs that meet the Regulation’s
requirements are automatically protected for three years from the date of disclosure of
the design to the public.
Key Link: http://oami.europa.eu/
Trademark Exhaustion
Within the EU, the rights conferred on trademark holders are subject to the principle of
"exhaustion." Exhaustion means that once trademark holders have placed their product
on the market in one Member State, they lose the right to prevent the resale of that
product in another EU country. This has led to an increase in the practice of so called
"parallel importing" whereby goods bought in one Member State are sold in another by
third parties unaffiliated to the manufacturer. Parallel trade is particularly problematic for
the research-based pharmaceutical industry where drug prices vary from country to
country due to national price Regulation.
Community wide exhaustion is spelled out in the Directive on harmonizing trademark
laws. In a paper published in 2003, the Commission indicated that it had no plans to
propose changes to existing legal provisions.
Key Link: http://ec.europa.eu/internal_market/indprop/tm/index_en.htm
IPR Climate in the Czech Republic
The Czech Republic is a signatory to the Bern, Paris, and Universal Copyright
Conventions. In 2001, the government ratified the WIPO Copyright Treaty and the WIPO
Treaty on Performances and Phonograms. Domestic legislation protects all intellectual
property rights, including patents, copyrights, trademarks, and semiconductor chip layout