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| Make sure you mark the right date! |
In an Official Notice issued on 30 September 2010, which appears to have taken everybody by surprise, the UK Intellectual Property Office (UKIPO) has announced a change in practice in relation to the period allowed for filing a Notice of Opposition to the registration of a national trade mark. Specifically, the expiry of the two-month opposition period has been reduced by one day.
For example, if an application is published for acceptance on 6 October 2010, it would previously have been the case that a Notice of Opposition could be filed up until 6 December 2010. Under the new practice, the final date for filing a Notice of Opposition is 5 December 2010.
While we do not usually trouble ourselves with trade mark matters on the aptly-named Patentology blog, this sudden change in practice by the UKIPO gave us pause to wonder whether some similar surprise may be lurking unnoticed in any of the regulations we operate under in our day-to-day practice. We are pleased to report that this seems unlikely and, indeed, this particular UK rule appears to be an anomaly.
Tags: Australia, Deadlines, Europe, New Zealand, Opposition, UK
