De Boer told the practitioners attending the MARQUES Annual Conference in Noordwijk last week that the number of CTMs filed in the first half of this year increased by less than 3% compared to the same period last year.

According to statistics dated September 4 2008, OHIM has received 58,800 CTM applications so far this year.

In the whole of 2007, it received 88,270 applications, which was a 14% increase on 2007. In 2006, applications increased by 20% and in 2005 they increased by 10%.

De Boer noted that the difficult economic situation internationally must have “some sort of effect” on the level of CTM filing, and added that the same trend was evident “to a lesser degree” in Community designs.

He also revealed that more than 95% of applications filed since the national searches become voluntary in March this year have opted not to request national searches.

In the light of this, he said that “it seems that a few offices don’t think it is worth the trouble to do it anymore”.

At present, 16 national offices (Austria, Bulgaria, Benelux, Czech Republic, Denmark, Spain, Finland, UK, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Sweden and the Slovak Republic) carry out national searches.

Sources have indicated to Managing IP that at least more four of these offices are likely to stop providing national searches as soon as later this year, with more likely to follow in the near future.

De Boer said the Office was close to meeting its stated aim of publishing CTM applications in 11 weeks (down from 30 weeks) and registering applications in 25 weeks.

He said he believed these time periods are “internationally respectable”.

The MARQUES Conference attracted more than 600 trade mark practitioners from Europe and beyond and took place in Noordwijk, the Netherlands, from September 16 to 19.