A Power of Attorney, POA in short, is a legal document that authorizes an entity to represent or act for another person, usually, in the managing of the person’s property, business or private affairs. The former is called the Attorney or Agent whereas the latter is commonly known as the Principal.
In Trademarks, a Power of Attorney is required to appoint an Attorney on your file so he/she can represent you before the respective Trademarks Office.
Having said that, in many countries including the US, UK, Europe, Canada and Australia you don’t need to sign a POA for a standard trademark application (power of attorney is already implied when you entrusted your attorney/agent trademark registration). However, there are countries, such as, China, Mexico, Russia and India where a POA signed by the owner or any other person legally bound to the owner is required in order to file a trademark application.
In the US, when an applicant wishes to replace its existing attorney and appoint a new attorney, it needs to sign a Power of Attorney authorizing the new attorney to prosecute the trademark application.
There are a few instances when trademark registration in Germany is not advisable or necessary:
- When a trademark search has not been done, you should not file your trademark in Germany.
- If you plan to file your trademark in the European Union, there is no need to file your trademark in Germany as well, as Germany is part of the EU. Please keep in mind, that an EU trademark registration will no longer protect you in the UK though.
- When you want to achieve protection in another country. Since trademarks are jurisdictional, a trademark in Germany will not be valid in the US or Canada.
- When you have a done a trademark search and found an identical or similar trademark. In this case, please consider changing the trademark name to avoid a trademark opposition.
- When your trademark is descriptive or generic, please do not file in Germany as it will be refused on absolute grounds.
Why should I file my trademark in Germany? if I could just file my trademark in the EU and obtain the same result?
Trademark registration in Germany is at least twice as fast as in the European Union and is also less expensive. If you need a trademark for Amazon Brand Registry as quickly as possible, German trademark will be the fastest way to get brand registered on amazon.com
There are two way of getting your trademark registered in Germany.
- File a trademark with a German Trademark Office, called DPMA.
- File a Trademark in the European Union, via European Union Intellectual Property Office, called EUIPO.
Trademark Angel can assist with both national German trademark registration and EU trademark registration.
Use prior to registration is not required in Germany. Trademark registration procedure in Germany from that in the US and statement of use is not required.
To maintain a trademark registration in Germany, one must use the trademark within 5 years from the registration. If the trademark has not been used, without a very good reason, for five years or more, then the registration may be cancelled. You should also preserve evidence of your use of your trademark in case your trademark is ever challenged.
Any natural person, partnership or company can apply for a trademark registration. However, a foreign applicant must be represented by a local German attorney. Trademark Angel provides proper legal representation all the way to trademark registration.
Yes, it’s possible to file a trademark application in multiple classes.
In fact, we recommend to include 3 classes in your trademark application since German Trademark Office government fees allows you to include 3 classes without any extra cost. We also don’t charge extra for up to 3 classes.
There are 3 ways how you can proceed:
- Book an initial phone call with us. Here is the link for the trademark package
- Ask for a free preliminary trademark search to get an idea of whether your trademark can be registered. This is a basic search but if your mark is unregistrable, we’ll be able to tell you. Order your search here.
- Buy a trademark package right away to start the trademark registration process without further delay. You can see our pricing on this page and can buy directly from our website.
What happens after I buy a trademark package?
- We’ll confirm your order.
- We’ll check if your trademark is registrable. A comprehensive trademark search will be done at this stage. We will provide detailed recommendations on how to increase the chances of achieving registration if your trademark turns out to be problematic.
- If your trademark is registrable, we’ll move forward with the trademark registration process.
- If your trademark has low chances of achieving registration, you will have 3 options:
- Ask for a full refund;
- Come up with a different name. We will provide detailed instructions for this. Further trademark searches are included in the package and there is no extra cost. We’ll keep searching until we find a registrable trademark;
- Proceed with the filing anyway.
The choice is yours. Make the first step now.
If you are in a real hurry to get a trademark registration in Germany.
If you need to get rid of hijackers on your Amazon listing on amazon.de.
If you can’t wait for longer than 3-4 weeks to get your trademark registered.
If you need urgent access to Amazon Brand Registry.
If you want to get access to Amazon Transparency Program.
The fastest we ever got a trademark in Germany with accelerated examination was 10 days!
You can use the encircled “R” symbol ® once your German trademark has been registered.
Using the ™ symbol with your trademark means that you claim to be the proprietor of the trademark and that you use the trademark as a “source indicator”. You can use the ™ symbol in Germany on registered or unregistered trademarks. However, the encircled “R” symbol ® shows to everybody that you are the owner of a registered trademark.
