According to the Czech Trade Mark Act, an opposition against a trade mark application must be filed, complete with reasons and evidence, within three months from the publication of the application. This deadline for filing of an opposition cannot be extended and failure to comply with it cannot be excused. Any additions or amendments and evidence presented in support of the opposition after the deadline will be disregarded by the Industrial Property Office.
Last year the Office issued a number of decisions in which it declined to take into consideration evidence that was presented by the opposition in support of assertions of good name or notoriety of the cited trade marks, where that evidence was not submitted as part of the telefax submissions made on the last day of the opposition deadline. This was despite the evidence being presented subsequently with the hardcopy submissions, albeit after the set opposition deadline. It was our opinion that these decisions were contrary to law, and we presented such arguments in appellate proceedings. Our arguments eventually led to success.
The president of the Industrial Property Office in his decision of September 3 2007 (in the appeal matter file number O-426657) stated that all submissions received by facsimile must be entered on to the file in writing within the deadline set by the Administrative Procedure Code (now five days), and also that the principle that submissions must be considered in light of their content not their form applies in this case.
On the basis of this the president reached the decision that it is the duty of the Office to consider even such evidence that was not facsimiled through on the last day of the opposition deadline (which is impossible for example in the case of product samples), but which was subsequently supplied in compliance with the Administrative Procedure Code, if that evidence was duly identified in the text of the opposition submission as submitted through facsimile. In such a case the evidence is deemed to be part of the submissions made through facsimile, even though it was not physically delivered to the Office by the expiry of the deadline.
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| Denisa Svecova |
Cermak Horejs Matejka a spol.
Národní 32, 110 00 Praha 1
Czech Republic
Tel: +420 296 167 606
Fax: +420 296 167 605
sspatova@apk.cz
www.cermakhorejsmyslil.cz
