Now you can go right ahead and register ‘modern’ trade marks in Sweden

A little more than a year ago, the rules regarding registration of EU trade marks were changed and the requirement for a trade mark to represented graphically was removed. In January of this year, the Swedish trade mark law was changed in a similar way and the requirement for graphic representation at registration has now also been removed for Swedish trade marks.

So, what does this mean?

First and foremost, this means that a trade mark application can be filed for a brand that cannot be represented graphically. To put it simply, one could say that "modern" brands can now be registered in Sweden. Since the requirement for graphic representation has been removed, you can now apply for trade marks in the form of, for example, sound, movements, animations, graphic sequences or short film sequences.

For companies, this means that you can be a lot more creative when it comes to designing brands. Several of the modern brands could be registered even before this law change, but due to the requirement for graphic presentation, it was much more complicated. It is therefore not entirely unreasonable to think that many companies were hesitant to develop more creative brands due to fear of not being able to protect them through a Swedish trade mark registration. Other forms of brands, such as multimedia brands (a combination of sound and motion), could not be registered at all. This is now possible due to the fact that the graphic presentation requirement has been removed. Multimedia brands can now be registered by submitting a short video that clearly presents the sound and movement of the brand.

In relation to other countries, Swedish companies have demonstrated a high level of curiosity and creativity. For example, 20% of the applications for movement brands during the first year originates from Sweden.

Thanks to the new rules, the limitations against registering many kinds of brands has been removed. There is therefore nothing to limit creativity and we at Abion hope that several companies dare to think a little outside the box when new brands are developed.

At Abion, we chose to take this opportunity and register our spinning logo, which was the first application to be submitted to EUIPO for a movement brand: