United States and European Union Fighting Fakes

EU Trademarks, US Trademarks, Intellectual Property Protection, Trademark Application

The United States and the European Union both have their special agencies that look after the rights of their respective intellectual properties. Visiting both sites, it becomes apparent- again- that the United States wins big time over the European Union when it comes to transparency and readability of its official papers and statements.

Entering the European Union’s intellectual property protection site, the first thing you want to do is to click away as fast as possible. A load of official papaers of which you already know that they are way too long and unreadable even before you open them (in a special pdf file, which takes ages to load on your laptop).

The United States’ website has a much better ambiance, having sidebars with various subjects that are directed at the different countries.  Not only does the US site look much better with regard to the content, also the url is much clearer and easy to remember: www.stopfakes.gov, this in comparison with the EU’s url: http://ec.europa.eu/internal_market/indprop/piracy/index_en.htm.

I propose that the EU website developers take some courses in communication. This would make it a little easier to accept the EU as a lawmaking institution and would also make it easier to gain some knowledge on such essential things as intellectual properties and trademark applications.

Have a look at the official websites and decide for yourself where you would prefer to file your trademark application in terms of complexity and bureaucracy.

www.stopfakes.gov and  the EU Single Market

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Trademark @ December 17, 2007