Committee Meetings
Negotiations to revise the Trademark Law Treaty (TLT) are gathering pace at WIPO. Participants at a meeting of the Standing Committee on the Law of Trademarks, Industrial Designs and Geographical Indications (SCT) from October 25 to 29 made significant progress in fine-tuning legal texts to bring the Treaty into line with the technological advances of the past decade. This follows on the heels of a decision by WIPO Member States at their annual Assemblies in October 2004 to convene a Diplomatic Conference on the revision of the TLT in March 2006.
The revisions are intended to keep pace with developments in telecommunication, and to create an institutional framework that would allow the adaptation of certain administrative details regulated under the treaty. New provisions on which the SCT is working cover electronic filing of trademark applications and associated communications; the recording of trademark licenses; relief measures when certain time limits have been missed; and the establishment of an assembly of the contracting parties.
The SCT reached consensus on a number of articles and rules including:
* the marks to which the treaty applies;
* questions relating to communications;
* measures in case of failure to comply with time limits;
* duration and renewal of registration; and
* questions relating to requests for recordal, amendment or cancellation of a license.
The SCT also discussed a provisional summary of responses from Member States to a questionnaire on national trademark law and practice. The survey, containing a large number of questions on national trademark law and practice, was circulated to SCT members in August 2003. To date, 69 countries and 3 intergovernmental organizations have submitted some 22,000 responses, which have been compiled in the provisional summary document. Member States and intergovernmental organizations that have responded to the questionnaire had until the beginning of 2005 to review and submit comments on their inputs. Thereafter, the final version of the document, taking into account all comments received, will be submitted to the SCT. The document could serve as a basis for future work of the SCT.
The SCT also considered the issue of the abusive registration of geographical...
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