Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2010-09-21-Speech-2-761"
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"en.20100921.25.2-761"2
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"Madam President, on behalf of my group and also as the Chairman of the Committee on the Internal Market and Consumer Protection, I want to thank the Commissioner very much indeed for making it absolutely clear that the behaviour of the two trademark offices concerned – in Benelux and in Hungary – is absolutely unacceptable.
I emphasise that very strongly, because this is clearly an attack on the fundamental principles of the internal market. I am pleased that all colleagues here have spoken in support of the decisions that the Commissioner will make. I would say, from a practical point of view first of all, that it is a remarkable coincidence that both those trademark offices are operating in the country of the current Presidency and the next Presidency.
The first thing my committee intends to do – and I will make sure it happens – is that, when the Minister for the Internal Market (and indeed the Hungarian Minister, from January onwards) comes to my committee, we will make sure that we ask this question and ask them to go directly to their trademark offices and say this is not acceptable.
Why is it not acceptable? Because it is a fundamental attack on the basic principle of the internal market that there should be no discrimination of any kind on companies, wherever they operate in a single uniform unitary market. In this case, it is even worse, because this proposal – or proposed actions, if they were to be upheld – actually discriminates against small enterprises as opposed to larger enterprises. It is small enterprises that will be most affected by this because they may register a new trademark for a product across the European Union – taking advantage, by the way, of a fantastic internal market revolution and a very cost-effective way of protecting their intellectual property. It may take them more than five years to get that product into the marketplace – and what would they find? When they come to the Hungarian market, they would find that the Hungarian trademark office has given their trademark away to someone else. This is absolutely not acceptable.
I cannot understand why it is that, after all the time that we have had the Office for Harmonisation in the Internal Market (the trademark office) in operation, we suddenly find these two trademark offices doing this. Perhaps it is because the cost of registering a European trademark has come down, because they are operating it so efficiently.
Of course, these two trademark offices, in trying to sustain these objections to allowing people to register trademarks, will be requiring the companies concerned to register in their own jurisdictions. This is naked self-interest on behalf of these organisations. It cannot be allowed to stand. It is fundamentally against the principles of the European Union and, by the way, it also undermines – as the Commissioner rightly says – a major priority for this Commission, which is innovation, getting new products into the market and making the internal market work better."@en1
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