01.May.2016
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'Amiga' no longer a registered trademark in Germany
All over the world more than 60 Amga related trademarks are still registered with various local trademark offices (overview, PDF). For the vast majority of them, the owner is listed as 'Amiga Inc., New York'. But the registration of a trademark has to be renewed in regular intervalls by its owner - usually every ten years - otherwise the mark gets deleted.
Since Amiga Inc. doesn't take care of that process anymore, Amiga trademark registrations have been deleted for several years already. So far, only superfluous registrations or marks in less relevant markets like Bulgaria had been affected. But from 2016 to 2018, all relevant trademark registrations in the important markets are about to expire, and the German marks are taking the lead: The registration period for the figurative mark 'Amiga' aswell as the word marks 'Amiga' and 'Amiga OS' ended in 2015.
As the German Trademark Office (DPMA, Deutsches Marken- und Patentamt) tells us, the actual expiry of a registration is followed by a grace period of six months, during which the original owner can reregister a trademark. After that, it takes another few weeks until the status of a registration is actually changed to 'expired' in the DPMA database. In fact, the DPMA register lists the figurative mark Amiga as 'deleted' and the word mark Amiga had already been deleted some six months ago. Amiga OS on the other hand will still be considered a registered Mark for a few more months.
Despite that, 'Amiga' isn't up for grabs yet in Germany - the European Intellectual Property Office also has a registration for an 'Amiga' trademark (file number 000815779) that only expires in 2018 and is valid in all countries of the European Union. (cg) (Translation: cg)
[News message: 01. May. 2016, 19:21] [Comments: 0]
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