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The Trade Marks and Designs Registration Office of the European Union
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OHIM is a non-profit-making European agency. Based in Alicante in Spain, the Office’s investment in e-Business tools allows us to work with companies from all over the world via the Internet. OHIM has around 800 staff and an annual income of more than €175 million.
Mission
The mission of the Office is to manage the Community Trade Mark and Community Design registration systems. In order to do so, the Office carries out examination, registration, opposition and cancellation procedures for Community Trade Marks and examination, registration and invalidity procedures for registered Community Designs. All decisions adversely affecting a party to proceedings can be appealed before the Boards of Appeal of the Office. The Office keeps public registers of these rights and procedures. It shares the task of issuing decisions on requests for invalidity or revocation of registered rights with the Courts of the EU Member States.
The Office engages in cooperation and harmonization activities with National Offices in the EU, as well as with major IP offices outside the EU, including its partners in the Trilateral, and the WIPO. The Office also maintains close contacts with major user organisations, several of which are have observer status at the administrative bodies of the Office. The ultimate aim of all those activities is to benefit users of the CTM and of national trade mark systems by fostering convergence among the offices, both in terms of IP practices and tools.
In fulfilling its role, the Office must be a quality-focused, productive, agile, user-friendly, accessible, efficient and cost-effective organisation.
Organisation
As a European agency, OHIM is supervised by the European Commission, but has legal, administrative and financial autonomy. The Council of Ministers decides on the appointment of the President, the Vice President, and the President and Chairs of the Boards of Appeal. The President is responsible for the running of the Office and there is also an Administrative Board and a Budget Committee each composed of one representative from each Member State and one representative from the European Commission.