Statistics from the Bulgarian Patent Office (BPO)
According to the recently issued statistics of the Bulgarian Patent Office, for the year of 2009, a total of 5140 trademark applications have been filed before the Bulgarian Patent Office. 4578 of those were in the name of Bulgarian applicants and 562 in the name of foreign applicants interested in acquiring IP rights for the territory of Bulgaria.
Another study revealed that for the past year, BPO has issued 9522 decisions regarding the status of trademark applications, of which 4677 trademark applications have been granted protection for the territory of Bulgaria. The number of the applications that were denied registrations amounts to 1962.
200 petitions for well-known trademark status have filed before the Bulgarian Patent Office. The Office issued 137 decisions. Only 52 of the petitions complied with all requisites for determining a mark as well-known.
By the end of 2009, the number of registered trademarks for the territory of Bulgaria has reached 51 412 (31 699, of which in the name of Bulgarian applicants and 19 713 – in the name of foreign applicants). In comparison with 2008, the number of trademark applications filed with BPO in the name of both, Bulgarian and foreign applicants, has decreased by 27 %.
