The trademark in Greece
25 August 2016
Recently the Greek Trademark Law has been significantly amended by Law No 4072/2012, which repealed previous Law No 2239/1994.
A trademark is any sign capable of being represented graphically, which can distinguish the goods or services of a particular company from those of another.
A trademark may particularly consist of words, names of natural or legal persons, nicknames, illustrations, designs, letters, numbers, sounds, including musical phrases, and a product’s shape or packaging.
Newspaper or magazine titles can also be considered as trademarks.
Trademark registration in Greece
Some signs may not be registered as trademarks. The most important categories of these are:
- Signs that are not distinctive
- Trademarks consisting exclusively of signs or indications which may serve in trade to designate the properties, quantity, purpose, value, geographical origin, or time of production of the good or supply of the service, or other characteristics of the good or service.
- Trademarks consisting exclusively of signs or indications which have become customary in the current language or in the bona fide and established practices of the trade
- Trademarks consisting exclusively of the shape which results from the nature of the product itself, or is necessary for a particular technical result, or gives a substantial value to the product
- Trademarks which are contrary to public policy or the accepted principles of morality
- Trademarks which can mislead the public as to, e.g., the nature, quality or geographical origin of the product or service
- Signs intended to distinguish wines or spirits that contain or consist of a geographical indication protected by EU legislation denoting wines or spirits of specific origin, provided that these wines or spirits do not have the specific origin
- Signs containing or consisting of a designation of origin or a geographical indication of agricultural products or food, which are registered in accordance with the EU legislation and concern the same type of product, provided that the application for registration of the trademark has been submitted after the date of submission of the application for registration of the designation of origin or geographical indication of agricultural products and food
- Names of states, the flag, emblems, symbols, escutcheons, signs and hallmarks of Greece and other States, which are referred to in the Article 6 (3) of the Paris Convention for the protection of Industrial Property (Law 213/1975, Off. Gaz. 258, Vol. A’) and are subject to the terms of this article, as well as signs of great symbolic significance and specific public interest, and particularly religious symbols, expressions and words
- Signs the registration of which has been conducted contrary to good faith or in bad faith
Apart from the abovementioned cases, the registration of a trademark, which is identical or substantially similar to an existing trademark, is definitely prohibited so as to avoid confusion.
The trademark registration procedure for trademark includes the submission of an application to the competent department of the Ministry of Commerce, along with certain legal documentation and a representation of the trademark. During this procedure, legal consulting is recommended, given that research on the existence of prior rights over the trademark shall be performed.
International and community trademarks enjoy the same degree of protection in Greece as in other countries.