The directive includes numerous provisions to approximate the laws of the EU member states.
The 28 states have three years (until January 14 2019) to implement most of the provisions, but until January 14 2023 to implement measures introducing administrative procedures for trade mark cancellation (if they do not already have them).
The revised directive is much longer than the directive it replaces (2008/95), with 57 articles compared to 19. The published text of the directive includes a helpful correlation table.
Also as part of the EU trade mark reforms, a new Regulation will replace the CTM Regulation. This is expected to be published tomorrow (December 24) and will come into force after 90 days.
Read our recent article on the European Parliament vote in favour of the trade mark package and our summary, posted earlier this year, of the six key changes.
We will publish further analysis on the impact of these important changes early in 2016.