Prior to joining the EU, as a main instrument of protection of the rights of industrial property on goods and services in Bulgaria we used the trademarks registered as national marks by the Bulgarian Patent Office (BPO).

When a trademark is registered as a national one, the danger of registering a similar national trademark for the same goods and services was minimal due to the former provision of the national law for obligatory examination on substance by the Bulgarian Patent Office for the existence of similar rights.

The Law of trademarks and geographical indications in the last years substantially changed towards harmonization with the European legislation. These changes started long time ago, with the EU accession processes, and have been driven by the natural processes of globalization and international cooperation enhancement.

As part of this process, two major changes occurred and provoked our timely reaction in terms of better protection of the trademarks of our clients.

The European Union TradeMark is already valid in the country. This happened automatically when Bulgaria joined the EU and the most significant consequence is that all trademarks, registered as EUTM, already have legal protection for the territory of Bulgaria. They are fully eligible to be opposed to all applications filed for registration after them in Bulgaria, as well as those under the Madrid agreement. The European TradeMark Regulation foresees also opposition against the registration of a trademark within a three-month period from its publication date in the Official Bulletin of the registration authority of the European Trademark – the European Intellectual Property Office (EUIPO), formerly known as OHIM.

In 2011, the most important ammendment in the Bulgarian Law on trademarks and geographical indications entered into force and revoked the examination on substance. Instead, a new procedure have been establisted: each application for a trademark registration to be published in the Official Bulletin of the Bulgarian Patent Office so that every interested party will have the right to launch opposition against the registration of a possible application filed. This opposition can be launched within three months of the publication date in the Official Bulletin of the Patent Office. It is responsibility of the trademark applicants and owners to observe for any infringements of their rights.

These two major changes in the trademark governing legislation prompted our immediate reaction to enhance the process of trademark protection for our clients.

Before 2011, trademark applications filed in the Bulgarian Patent Office, as well as those filed under the Madrid agreement, due to the obligatory examination on substance, could be refused for registration if it is similar to yours and claims similar to your goods or services. With the new legislation, such a refusal will not be made if there is no opposition filed on your side. If you do not file an opposition within the required period then the presumption is that you do not oppose a similar or even an identical trademark to be recognized on the territory of Bulgaria. This applies for national trademarks, those under the Madrid agreement, as well as the EU trademarks.

All of the above point to the important role of constant surveillance of the publication of newly applied trademarks in the Bulgarian Patent Office, The World Organisation of Intelectual Property (The Madrid Agreement) and EUIPO, which are more than 1 700 000 in total.

Alongside with the services we have been rendering to you so far with the appropriate professionalism and responsibility, we propose to you our latest service, comprising a constant surveillance on your behalf of all the trademarks filed and published in the above mentioned three sources, competent identification and judgement of the grounds for filing an opposition against a filed trademark; timely proposition for undertaking adequate legal measures; monthly report, containing either a proposition for action from your side, or just the information that there are no filed applications for trademarks which may be an infringement on your rights.

We provide you with an initial Extended report for each trademark applied or owned by you. The Extended report consists fo three parts:

• Part 1 - data about your own trademark - contains the bibliographical and/or picture elements of your monitored trademark, which is the subject of the report.
• Part 2 - proposals for opposition - contains trade makrs in opposition period. The opposition deadline is specified, too. This section of the report contains the most important information that may provoke action from your side towards protection of your IP rights.
• Part 3 - other similar marks - contains information about:
  • Trademarks which opposition period has expired.
  • Trademarks registered before the date of application of the trademark - subject of the report. Such information exists in the report just for your information. Most often, these are European trademarks registered before 01.01.2007 when the Republic of Bulgaria was not yet an EU member and the EUTMs have not ben valid on our territory. But you should be aware that although you cannot undertake any actions against such marks, they can be used as grounds for their owners to attack your mark. That is why this section of the report is also important.
  • Trademarks considered by us as similar in certain extent, but with not as high level of similarity as to recommend an opposition. But such a decision can be taken by You based on this information.

Our monitoring services do not replace, but just complement the traditional activities of an IP representatives or the IP specialisis who are employees in large companies - trademark owners. Our services provide them additional, proven and reliable information that can be a solid ground for further analysis and decisions for undertaking legal actions.

Doing the constant monitoring "manually" (by reading the official bulletins, Internet publications and online databases) implies major risks of missing something. The risks do not depend on the qualifcations of the expert doing the manual monitoring. It is pre-determined by the lack of the appropriate tooling and methodology. The trademark monitoring is a typical information service, highly specialized and not typical for a lawyer or an IP representative or specialist.

Our highly specialized services are based on special methodology, technical platfoms and databases, creation of which would not be financially justifiable for the needs of monitoring of just tens or hundreds marks. By outsourcing this activity to a specialized provider like us, even relatively small clients can get access to a top-quality corporate-level service.

We hope that our trademark monitoring service can help You to:

• be always aware of the „trademark environment” of your marks;
• undertake timely actions agains registration of new marks that would infringe your IP rights;
• avoid potencial loss or missed benefits resulting from illegal use of identical or similar trademarks to your ones, by your competitors;
• minimize the risk of substantial expenses and time in court proceedings protecting your IP rights;
• „keep an eye” on your competition, by watching their marks.

In case you need any further information or explanations, please do not hesitate to contact us and request a meeting, presentation or discussion.

The standard price for monitoring of a trademark for one year is 75 EUR excluding VAT.

We also apply flexible pricing schemes based on the number of monitoring trademarks, in order to meet in a maximum extent the particular needs of our clients. After getting acquainted with your particular needs, we can provide you a particular proposal for protection of your IP rights with minimum expenses.

Our exclusive proposal especially to the IP representatives is just 50 EUR (excluding VAT) annual subscription per tardemark!