HOW TO PROTECT YOUR BRAND WITH TRADEMARK IN HUNGARY AND IN THE EU

29 April 2024

Trademark protection is a very simple but effective method to protect your company’s brand, including the business name, logo, slogan, and much more. If you are doing business in the EU, you have multiple options to acquire trademark protection. In case you want to know more about trademarks than the ™ and ® symbols, this short article will surely pique your interest.

National or EU Trademark?

The starting point is that in the EU, trademarks can be registered at national level (in Hungary at the “HIPO”) as a national trademark or at EU-level (at the “EUIPO”) as a European Union trademark, which two, although there are similarities, are significantly different.

National and EUTMs coexist and are complementary to each other. The same trademark can be registered at EU and/or national level. So the question arises, which one should you choose?

In case your brand is known in multiple EU Member States, you may consider EUTM as it grants the owner an exclusive right in all EU countries. However, if your business is local, you may not need EUTM as a national trademark registration can provide you with adequate protection.

You can see below the comparison of the national (Hungarian) and EU Trademark:

	Hungarian Trademark	EU Trademark
Territorial scope of protection	Hungary	all EU countries (protection can be lost where not used)
Forms eligible to protection	“ADIDAS” Word mark
	Figurative mark
	Shape mark
	Colour mark
	and many others…:    Sound mark, Position mark, Pattern Mark, Motion mark, Multimedia mark,       Hologram mark.
Validity of protection	10 years (can be continuously renewed for another 10 years)		10 years (can be continuously renewed for another 10 years)
Length of registration procedure	6-7 months		4-5 months
Cost of registration	1 class: 150 EUR 2 classes:  200 EUR 3 classes: 280 EUR		1 class: 850 EUR 2 classes: 900 EUR addtl. classes: +50 EUR/class

 

How to obtain trademark protection?

As you can see, trademark protection may be granted for most type of signs, provided that these are capable of distinguishing goods or services from the goods or services of others; and can be represented in the trademark register in a manner which enables the authorities and the public to clearly and precisely determine the subject matter of the protection applied for or granted to its holder.

An advantage of the trademark protection is that the protection and the violation can be clearly established based on a publicly available register. To appear in the public registry, you must register your trademark online either before the national or EU trademark office, which is a small price to be paid for an effective legal protection.

Important to note that a registered trademark protects the brand only in the context of the categories of goods and services defined in the application. The underlying reason stems from the very purpose of trademark registration and that is to protect the distinctiveness of a brand and prevent consumer confusion. Similar trademarks used for different categories of products and services (e.g. restaurant and software company) are highly unlikely to create consumer confusion. Hence, the selection of particular goods and services represents a key part of the trademark registration process, consequently defining the scope of brand protection. You either file a national or EU Trademark application, you have to select the goods and services by using the Nice Classification and “TMClass”.

Although registration is relatively simple, we recommend that you consult with a legal expert for the most effective trademark protection.