Brexit: Key Takeaways for Your Trademark Portfolio

The United Kingdom left the European Union on January 31, 2020 and is now in a transition period set to last until December 31, 2020. Since EU rights will eventually terminate in the UK, a few key changes that will take effect once the transition period ends are as follows:

• After December 31, 2020, the UK IP Office will create “cloned” registrations in the UK for all existing EU registrations and EU designations under the Madrid System. The cloned UK registrations will be created automatically, and will retain the identical priority dates and renewal deadlines as the original EU filing or Madrid designation.
• All EU applications or designations that are still pending after December 31, 2020 will not be automatically cloned into UK filings. Instead, there will be a nine month window (until September 30, 2021) to request a cloned UK filing. We will be reaching out to you to confirm that you want your EU filings to extend to the UK, and that we should incur the fees and costs for such steps.

Please let your Wolf Greenfield attorney(s) know if you have any questions.