The EUIPO’s Observatory publishes a study on the dynamics of EU trademark applications in the last twenty years and the impact that the already “routinized” COVID-19 has had in the period 2020-2022. It also aims to determine the trends of trademark applicants from the point of view of the Nice classification. What conclusions does the study show?
Trademark applications filed before the EUIPO as a whole show an increase of 6.1% on average between 2001 and 2022 despite COVID-19, since in 2020 the number of applications filed continued to rise, being the year 2021 the record year for applications, with 198,000. However, a drop of 12 points took place in 2022 compared to the average, probably due to the war in Ukraine and inflation in the Eurozone.
Regarding the trends of trademark applicants from the point of view of the Nice classification, an upward growth in service classes was observed in the period 2020-2022. Focused on the 2020-2022 period, the report states that in 2020, only 35% of product classes suffered a slowdown, in contrast to the 70% drop that affected service classes. Logically, in 2020, the classes associated with medical and pharmaceutical products showed the greatest growth.
While in 2020 the largest number of applications came from China, in 2021 it was the 27 EU members that submitted the most applications.
A curious point catches our attention: apparently an event with more devastating (a priori) effects in general terms, such as Covid-19, had a smaller impact on EU trademark applications than it seems to have had (and will it have?) the war in Ukraine and the inflation of the Euro zone.
The full report here
Abril Abogados
