Manual on Descriptiveness of Trade Marks in Absolute Grounds in (selected) CARIFORUM IP Offices
On 15 September 2023, the CARIFORUM Intellectual Property and Innovation Project (CarIPI) published a manual on Types of Marks and Descripveness of Trade Marks as a result of the joint efforts of the Intellectual Property (IP) offices/registries of Barbados, Belize, Cuba, the Dominican Republic, Guyana, Jamaica, Saint Kitts and Nevis, Saint Lucia, St Vincent and Grenadines, Suriname, Trinidad and Tobago, and the European Union Intellectual Property Office (EUIPO), today we are publishing a Manual on Descriptiveness of trade marks.
The manual provides guidance for trade mark applicants and examiners on assessing descriptiveness of trade marks in the examination of absolute grounds, which will generally be applied by the subscribing CARIFORUM IP offices.
The aim of publishing the manual is to increase transparency, legal certainty and predictability for the benefit of the different IP offices’ users and examiners. It also aims to become a reference for these and any other interested parties.
This great achievement has been made possible thanks to the collaborative work of the CARIFORUM IP offices under the CARIFORUM Intellectual Property and Innovation Project (CarIPI), who analysed criteria for assessing the descriptiveness of trade marks in absolute grounds examination.
Access the manual in English and Spanish here:
- Manual on Types of Marks and Descriptiveness [PDF - 0.9 MB] [EN] [ES]