That change in the law, which potentially affects every single owner of Community trademarks (CTMs) with marks which predate June 2012, has opened up a six month window which will close in September 2016, at which time trade mark owners have to take certain actions or they may have their rights unilaterally restricted.
Commenting on the launch of the product, partner and head of IP, Marc Döring said: "The process of working out how to file Article 28 declarations and how to protect your CTM portfolios is a long, painful process if done by hand – hours or days of work. We have created a unique end-to-end product that will handle declarations with the minimum of fuss, and at a price which makes sense."
Darren Meale, a managing associate in intellectual property and the creator of Simmons & Simmons Translator, continued: "We realised last year when the EU law reforms were announced that Article 28 was going to be a nightmare for clients. We created Simmons & Simmons Translator to take that headache away: it is a unique service providing a simple solution to an otherwise complex problem."
Development of the service was led by Darren Meale with support from intellectual property partner, David Stone and a number of other partners, associates and professional support staff from across the firm.
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