Removal of the Trademark from the Registry
The cancellation of the registration of a trademark is a serious matter for its owner, since it leads to the loss of his rights under the registration. There are a number of reasons why a trademark can be removed from the register. Causes of deregistration of the trademark are the deregistration due to lack of renewal, the deregistration at the request of the registered owner, the deregistration due to lack of use and the deregistration due to nullity.
If the owner of a trademark does not use his trademark within the grace period provided by law, any interested party may request its cancellation. If the holder cannot defend himself, the court orders the removal of the record for non-use. If the owner can prove the use or validate the non-use of only some of the registered goods, the court will order partial cancellation. Partial cancellation extends to all registered goods whose use cannot be proven or, at least, to all those that are not similar to the goods that the registered owner has used. This does not mean that the registered owner’s rights would be severely restricted to the goods used or even to a particular product on which their trademark has been used.
If a trademark consists of a sign that should not have been registered, it can be declared invalid by the court at the request of any interested party. Sometimes trademark laws also provide a procedure for that principle. As a result of the declaration, the mark is removed from the register. If invalidity opinions exist only with respect to some of the registered assets, the registration is deleted for only those assets.
It has been shown that for administrative reasons a trademark is only registered for a defined period of time. If the trademark owner does not renew his registration and, more specifically, does not pay the renewal fee, this leads to the removal of the trademark from the registry. Registries generally allow a grace period for the payment of the renewal fee in accordance with the Article of the Paris Convention. If the law allows the renewal of the trademark registration only for some of the registered goods, this results in a partial cancellation of the trademark registration for all the goods for which it is not renewed.
The registered owner may at any time withdraw his registration for all or some of the products for which the trademark is registered. At the request of the registered owner, the authorities, in principle, will remove the mark from the register in whole or in part.
