On December 13, 2022, Romania adopted amendments to its trade mark law enabling the Romanian Intellectual Property Office to handle revocation and invalidation applications as of January 14, 2023. Such applications are currently handled by the Bucharest Tribunal. Going forward, interested parties will be able to choose whether to bring an invalidation or revocation action before the Romanian IPO or before the court.
At the Romanian IPO, these applications will be handled by specialised boards consisting of trade mark experts with at least three years of experience in the legal field. Board members will be restricted from being involved in any other IPO proceedings.
Revocation and invalidation applications will undergo a preliminary examination to establish whether formal requirements are met – namely, if they contain the parties’ identification details, data concerning the contested trade mark and its holder, legal grounds on which the action is based (for invalidation actions, also the prior rights invoked), if the action is targeted against all or part of the goods and services, the substantive arguments and the supporting evidence. Read more