The Locarno System and reform — MARQUES’ Hallmarks
IPKat - IP news and fun for everyone: MARQUES, the Association of European Trade Mark Owners, has just prepared a Position Paper on Proposed Changes to the Locarno Classification System for Industrial Designs. Many people regard the Locarno system as a pretty dull thing, but it is not unimportant — and may be increasingly useful if MARQUES’ proposals are adopted. Since it’s not yet available on the MARQUES website the IPKat reproduces the Position Paper here, in relevant part and with the addition of some useful links:
“The MARQUES Designs Team has prepared this position paper in response to the proposals put forward to the Ad Hoc Working Group of the Special Union for the International Classification for Industrial Designs (Locarno Classification) by representatives of a number of contracting parties.
It is not MARQUES’s intention to comment in detail on the various proposals put forward by the contracting parties, but rather to attempt to identify areas of interest to intellectual property owners for whom the system was developed, and whose industrial design application fees fund the system and its administration. That said, MARQUES agrees with the Ad Hoc Working Group that the Locarno Classification needs to be developed further in order to meet current needs. MARQUES therefore supports the establishment of a pilot group to work on the development of a search system for designs based on visual search features.
Background
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The Locarno Classification provides for a taxonomic system for the classification of products – a filing schema, begun in 1968, that, through a system of 32 classes and 223 subclasses, seeks to ensure that the growing number of registered design filings are orderly. The aim of the Locarno Classification is to facilitate searches for designs.
The Locarno Classification does not purport to impact on the scope of protection of design registrations…