At ACC Europe’s recent annual meeting, as reported in Legal Week (July 23, 2005), one of the speakers was Wubbo de Boer, President of the Office for Harmonisation in the Internal Market. He spoke about the European Community Trademark and boasted that “since the Community Trademark was set up in April 1996, its reach has extended to 450 million people in 25 countries.”
De Boer predicted that trademark registrations and renewals will see increasing use of technology. In fact, “In five years time, 80% of business applications would be processed through the internet.” Law departments that use foreign associates extensively to file, prosecute and defend trademarks ought to jump on this development as a way to increase productivity and decrease transaction costs.