Trade Marks (Relative Grounds) Order 2007

We do not believe that any additional burden on existing national trade mark owners will be as great as the burden that we are now removing from businesses who want to register new national trade marks. There are a number of reasons for that. First, registration of a new trade mark does not extinguish the legal rights of the owner of a conflicting earlier trade mark to cancel registration and prevent the use of the later trade mark. Consequently, a national business does not have to oppose every apparently conflicting later trade mark. As I said, the order provides that the registrar may continue to conduct a search of relevant registers for the purpose of notifying persons about the existence of relevant earlier trade marks. Secondly, most oppositions, which must be filed at the UK IPO, are resolved through negotiation between the parties or by one side or the other backing down before significant costs are incurred, so we are pretty sure that there will not be the burden about which the noble Baroness is concerned. On the question of consultation, I mentioned in my speech that the consultation was extensive. It was placed on the UK IPO website and was accessed by about 2,000 individual users. About 40 hard copies were also issued to groups and organisations with an interest in this area. Press releases were issued to highlight the consultation to a wide audience. To engage small and medium-sized businesses, a summary of the consultation was sent to more than 500 individual businesses which had approached the UK IPO for information about protecting trade marks. The consultation was also highlighted on the websites of the Intellectual Property Office and the Small Business Service. I mentioned earlier the considerable number of organisations that we consulted before the order was finally drafted. On Question, Motion agreed to.