European Union trademark (EUTM)

A European Union trademark covers all countries of the European Union through a single registration filed at the EUIPO. The official fee starts at €850 for one class (see trademark fees and costs). For a US company, one EUTM filing replaces up to 27 national filings.

Unitary character — strength and weakness

The EUTM is unitary: it is valid in every EU member state as one indivisible right. The flip side: if an EU application is opposed on the basis of a single national mark — say, one earlier Spanish registration — and the opposition succeeds, the EU application is refused in its entirety, for all 27 countries.

The safety net is conversion: the defeated application can be converted into national applications, keeping the EU filing date (and therefore its seniority over intervening rights) in the countries not affected by the opposition decision. In the Spanish-opposition example, conversion is available into a French mark and into national marks of every EU country except Spain.

Terminology traps

• The EUTM’s former name is the Community trade mark (marque communautaire), from the era of the European Community; older documents still use it. Community designs are likewise becoming EU designs.
• “European trademark” is a misnomer: no trademark covers geographic Europe. The EUTM covers the political EU only — neither Switzerland nor the United Kingdom, which are not EU members, so both need separate filings.

See also: EU trademark registration, EUIPO opposition, French trademark, international trademark.

← All glossary terms