Trademark Law Treaties

Introduction:

TLT is a Treaty that came into existence with the singular aim of harmonizing and easing procedural and administrative aspects concerning International Protection and Registration of Trademarks at several Jurisdictions / States who would be the participating signatory member countries to TLT.

Such adoption and ratification of TLT by the signatory countries would help both administrative officials and prospective applicants in processing their applications at a multi-jurisdiction level.  The uniformity and singularity offered by TLT concerning paperwork involved in registering trademarks at international levels takes away a lot of the volume involved therein, which is daunting to many applicants who also face language barriers with the respective national offices.

TLT was adopted on October 27 1994 and it came into force on August 1 1996.

Main Aspects of TLT:

·    TLT curtails usage of excessive administrative and procedural intricacies at the national offices of the signatory countries by way of a streamlined process towards registration, changes post registration and renewals of trademarks.

·    TLT reduces complexities and increases predictability  by way of harmonization and simplification regarding trademark registrations.

·    In effect, TLT does away with the requirement of attestation, notarization, authentication, legalization, certification of signatures, except when the applicant seeks to surrender the trademarks.

·    Initial registration and renewal is standardized to 10 yrs. under TLT.

·    Wide ranging documentation pertaining to submission of multiple Powers of Attorney, incorporation certificate or chambers of commerce certificate, authentication, legalization requirements are lessened.

·    Service marks are brought on par with Trademarks.

·    Mandatory compliance of Paris Convention by member countries.

·    A single document would suffice to record the trail of title against multiple applications and registrations.

·    Filing a single application would suffice to cover multiple classes.  Such multiclass applications could end up being divided at the time of opposition proceedings.

·    Trademark assignments need not be inclusive of goodwill.

Conclusion:

To conclude, there is still a lot of debate and discussion going on at the global level relating to TLT. Many countries are signatories to TLT and are following this streamlined registration of trademarks.

Refer the list of signatory countries to TLT.

Our Attorney will assist you in trademark registrations and renewals in these participating signatory countries.