2007.08.30 Switzerland ratified the Singapore Treaty on Law of Trademarks (Singapore TLT)
The TLT aims at providing the applicants of the member countries with a simple access to the protection of their trademarks before the national offices as well as reducing the costs linked to the International protection. Actually, considering the recent evolution of the trademarks that do not consist only in words or labels any more but represent the whole identity of a product, the TLT provides several administrative and procedural measures in order to promote the investments in the field of trademarks. It is also the first International treaty that explicitly recognizes non-traditional trademarks like colour, sounds or flavours.
The TLT also delimits the possible license recordal requirements in the member countries where it is mandatory and where, for the time being, failure to record a license results in invalidation of the trademark registration. The Singapore Treaty’s license recordal provisions reduce the formalities that trademark owners must face when doing business in a contracting party that requires recordal, and reduce the damaging effects that can result from failure to record a license in those jurisdictions. In particular, the national offices are not authorized to request confidential information such as a complete version of the agreement or its financial modalities.
41 countries adopted the Singapore TLT but only Singapore and Switzerland ratified it. It will come into force only after its ratification by at least ten countries.
