Associated Trademarks

The administration authority should write on the page appropriated for the registration of the trademark the other marks associated therewith and their numbers. This association is confirmed in Article (2) of the Regulations.

Marks are considered associated with a trademark or other marks if they are identical or similar and owned by one person and are intended to label products of the same or similar category (Article “2” of the Regulations).

The Department’s right to discuss with the applicant for trademark registration :-
The legislator has warranted the Department, if it has serious doubts about the validity of the application data or the documents attached thereto, to ask the applicant for clarifications or documents to support his request.

The legislator has required that the applicant be summoned by a registered letter with acknowledgment of receipt and has also set a grace period for the Department authority to complete the data and discuss the applicant within three months from the date on which the applicant was assigned the clarifications or documents (Article “81” of the Regulations).

The Department’s right to request an amendment to the trademark registration application :-
The Commercial Registration Authority may decide to assign the trademark registration applicant to make the necessary amendments to the trademark to be registered to identify and clarify it to avoid confusion with another mark previously registered or an application for that mark (Article 1/77).

In this case, the Authority must notify the applicant of its decision through a registered letter with acknowledgment of receipt within 30 days as of the date of its issuance (Article “2/77” of the Law).

The provisions of the administrative court in this respect have established the permissibility of assigning the applicant to registration with a justified decision to amend the trademark to be registered to clarify it, and that this does mandate the attainment of the approval of another trademark.

It is noted that the authority of the administrative department to request an amendment to the trademark to avoid its confusion with another trademark is not absolute, as the legislator has defined this authority in a framework that may not be transgressed or deviated from, otherwise, its decision shall be flawed and violating the law. This framework – according to what the Administrative Court ruled – “requires that amendments be made to the trademark itself and its elements, not to the classes for which the mark is to be registered.

The attainment of the approval of the owner of another mark is also considered as a deviation from this framework. If the Administrative Authority requests the owner of the trademark to be registered to make certain amendments to it within the foregoing framework and informs him of this matter by the means specified by the legislator and the trademark applicant has not implemented what the Authority assigned thereto, then it may, within six months, decide to reject the registration of the trademark.

If the applicant fails to implement the amendments imposed by the Authority within six months, the latter may then reject the application, and the six months shall be calculated from the date of notifying the applicant (Article “3/77” of the Law).

The Chairman of the Trademark Registration Authority or his representative may suspend the acceptance of registration on the condition of assigning a certain element or indication if the mark includes an element or indication devoid of any distinctive features or being just a designation given by custom to the products, the drawing, or the ordinary pictures of the products. This has been explicitly indicated in Article (86) of the implementing regulations of the Law.