Maltese or EU Trademarks?
A trademark consists of any signs capable of distinguishing goods or services of one firm or company (referred to in the legislation as an undertaking) from those of another. Trademarks serve to indicate the commercial source or origin of the products and services they relate to. Moreover, trade marks may fulfill other functions such as advertisement or goodwill. A decision whether to opt for a local or a European trademark should mainly consider the extent of your business. One should keep in mind that separate registrations exist for both local and European trademarks. The local legislation implementing national trademarks was in place before Malta joined the EU. This means that the national trademark right granted by virtue of the Trademarks Act is a territorial right with local applicability, granted on a separate basis to the European Union Trademark. Nonetheless, national trademark rights still feature a degree of harmonisation based on the Directive (EU) 2015/2436 (Trademarks Directive).
Essentially one has to gauge his requirements and decide accordingly. A national trademark will grant effective protection in the local market, whilst an EU trademark will grant protection across European Member States. There are also other factors to consider however as the EUTM register is watched by a greater number of right holders than the national one and therefore an EUTM application is more likely to face an opposition than a locally registered one.
Another possibility is that of following an International Route. There is no International Trademark per se, it simply does not exist. There is however a protocol administered by the World Intellectual Property Organisation (WIPO) which offers what can best be termed as a centralised administrative procedure which allows an applicant to use a central (base or home) trademark application, filed in a jurisdiction which is party to the Madrid Agreement or Madrid Protocol and use that application to launch multiple other applications in other jurisdictions across the globe. This will not result in an International Trademark but rather in a bundle of National Registrations which can (to an extent) be administered centrally. Malta is not a signatory to the Madrid Protocol or Agreement and therefore a national Maltese trademark cannot be used in this scenario but an interested applicant can instead use an EUTM registration to proceed with international filings with WIPO.
