Continuing Boom for International Trademarks

The business location Austria has a high-quality competence centre in matters of international industrial property rights with the Austrian Patent Office. And this positioning is also beneficial for Austrian companies: With more than 1250 applications processed by us as the authority of origin and forwarded to the World Intellectual Property Organisation (WIPO), a new record was broken. Austria is thus once again one of the Top Ten users of the Madrid System, and is ahead of states such as Great Britain, Spain or Japan. An increasing number of applicants (about 150) have also used their Austrian application or trademark as a basis for a European Community designation and thus for obtaining an international Community trademark, which is slightly cheaper by comparison with direct registration in Alicante.

Regarding the number of designations filed with the WIPO for Austria, there was a slight decrease in keeping with an international trend. Especially multinational corporate groups tend to apply increasingly for protection in the whole Community and do without national designations.
With more than 10,000 renewals of international trademarks, a historical record level was reached, and that is also something to be proud of internationally: With this quota, Austria is in the top 4 of the renewal ranking for all IR trademarks, together with the Benelux states, Switzerland and Italy.