Ater a trademark application has been accepted by a UK IPO examiner it will be advertised on their on line jounral. There is then a two month period (extendable to three months) in which parties may oppose its registration.

There are two ways in which a mark can be objected to:

Third party observations:

This means that anyone can object to a trade mark before it is actually registered and these are called third party observations.

The observations are not legal actions but merely tell the UK IPO if an application has been submitted in error. They do not have to act on this information.

Opposing a trademark

If a formal legal objection is rasied then this is called an 'opposition.  Opposition is the legal procedure that allows you to try to stop a published mark going on to become registered.

You can oppose the entire application, or only some of the goods or services it covers.

Applications can be opposed for the following reasons:

You think the trade mark is one which is not unique to the applicant and should be free for everyone in that line of trade to use; or

You own a trade mark (which does not have to be registered itself) which is the same as, or similar to, the applicant’s trade mark.