Under the new system, substantive examination of trademark applications by the Patent Office shall be executed only on absolute grounds and if an application is found registrable it shall be subject to publication in the Official Bulletin of the Office.  It is important to note the Patent Office shall not examine ex officio trademark applications on relative grounds.

According to the provisions of Art. 38 of the Law on Marks and GIs, within three months of the publication of a trademark application, owners of earlier identical or similar marks covering identical or similar goods or services may oppose its registration.

In view of the new amendments to the law, it is strongly recommendable for the rightful owners to exercise due care by monitoring published applications and in case of identifying possible infringements proceed with the respective opposition action.

Bojinov & Bojinov is happy to announce that it provides a trademark watch service.

In case the above service might be of interest, please do not hesitate to contact us at office@ptmbojinov.com.

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 %.

 The above signal resulted in an inspection during which were confiscated eight computer systems and servers containing pirated software. The initial appraisal of the damages was determined as being worth 30 000 EUR. Under Article 172 of the Criminal Offence Act, a preliminary investigation has been initiated against the infringers.

After raiding three different addresses, the Haskovo Police confiscated 1300 boxes of washing powder and over 600 shampoos. Over 30 000 empty boxes with the trademark “Ariel” were also found.

The investigation was initiated based on a signal from an unidentified distributor who complained to the authorities that customers were experiencing hair loss after using the above mentioned shampoos.

3500 master boxes (35 million cigarettes) bearing the Chinese trademark Jin Ling have been seized by the Varna Customs Officers during a check of a vessel.

The Bulgarian Customs Authorities have been signaled by the customs authorities of other EU member countries that a large amount of cigarettes were to be smuggled into the European Union.

The customs authorities revealed that the goods originate from Moldova and the consignee is located in Egypt.

If the cigarettes had reached the Bulgarian market, the loss from the excise duty would have amounted to 12 million Euro.

According to the Bulgarian Finance Minister, this seizure can be qualified as the most successful operation of the Bulgarian Customs Agency from the beginning of 2010.

After two and a half years the BPO has granted the revocation action.  The delay in the issuance of the decision of the BPO is due to the complexity of the case.  In particular, the petitioner and the holder of the attacked trademark are parties to another pending proceeding concerning the same trademark. 

Pursuant to Art. 25 of the LMGI the registration of a trademark shall be declared revoked if the trademark has not been put to genuine use for the registered goods within five years as of the registration date, or the use has been ceased for continuous period of five years, unless there is a proper reason for non-use.  

The BPO has found that two of the three statutory requisites for revocation of the trademark are at hand – the five years grace period has expired prior to the filing date of the revocation action and the holder of the trademark has submitted no evidences for the use of the trademark within the relevant period November 7, 2002 – November 7, 2007.  

With regard to the third statutory requisite, and namely the reasons for the lack of use of the trademark, the holder stated that the trademark has not been put to genuine use due to the pending court proceedings on invalidation action of the attacked trademark.  The trademark holder claimed that in the event that the trademark is declared invalid, then its potential use shall be on no legal ground and in violation of an earlier right of protected designation of origin. 

The BPO considered that such statement has no ground.  Any use of the trademark by its holder shall be considered on legal ground until the decision on the invalidation of the respective trademark enters into effect, therefore the rights already enforced shall not be affected by the invalidation decision and may not be subject to sanction.  Thus, if the trademark holder has submitted evidences for the use of the attacked trademark, such evidences may not have been used by the user of the protected designation of origin, since there has been no effective invalidation decision within the relevant period.  Based on the above arguments the Chairman of the BPO has declared the attacked trademark revoked as of  November 7, 2002.

The BPO’s decision is subject ot appeal before the Administrative Court of Sofia City.

The number of applications for actions filed with the Bulgarian Customs Agency for 2009 is 498. 342 of them have been received by the Customs Administrations from the Member States of the European Union. The number of cases in which the Bulgarian Customs Administration intervened in 2009 was 1274. The quantity of the seized goods bearing well-known global brands is around 23, 450 674.

The most popular categories of counterfeit products seized by the Bulgarian Customs in 2009 were:

• Clothing – 98 724;
• Toilet waters and perfumes – 40 142;
• Accessories – hats, scarves, belts – 32 183;
• Toys and games – 29 912;
• Bags, purses, backpacks – 10 124;
• Shoes – 5295.

Overall, China was the main source country for IPR infringing articles followed by Turkey and United Arab Emirates.

The most common counterfeited brands detained in 2009 were: Disney – 85355 pcs. Transformers – 23058 pcs, Lacoste – 19565 pcs, Nike – 21795, Adidas – 19842 pcs, Puma – 8889 pcs. and Armani – 8527 pcs.

The most significant seizures of fake goods were:

• 6650 cigarette cases bearing the trademark MERCEDES, BMW, PLAYBOY, AUDI, MARLBORO, HARLEY- DAVIDSON;
• 2346 sunglasses bearing the trademark Armani;
• 264 wooden cigar boxes bearing the trademark COHIBA and ROMEO Y JULIETA;
• 5760 photo frames bearing the trademark Disney;
• 2254 flip-flops bearing the logos of the following worldwide famous trademarks:

             – Manchester United – 730

             – Barcelona – 733;

             – Chelsea – 783;

             – Real Madrid – 8