EUIPO

IP

European Union Intellectual Property Office — the EU agency for trademark and design registration across all EU member states.

Sources

1. Regulation (EU) 2017/1001 on the European Union trade mark — EUR-Lex eur-lex.europa.eu accessed 23 September 2026

The Office is a creature of Regulation (EU) 2017/1001, and the recitals explain what it was built to be. Administrative measures were judged necessary at Union level, so it was “essential, while retaining the Union’s existing institutional structure and balance of powers, to provide for a European Union Intellectual Property Office (‘the Office’) which is independent in relation to technical matters and has legal, administrative and financial autonomy.” It is “a body of the Union having legal personality and exercising the powers which are conferred on it by this Regulation”. What it administers rests on the principle the Regulation calls unitary character: undertakings can “by means of one procedural system obtain EU trade marks to which uniform protection is given and which produce their effects throughout the entire area of the Union”, and that principle applies “unless otherwise provided for in this Regulation”. One filing, one right, one territory — and, by the same token, one central point of failure if the mark is successfully attacked.

What this source settles. Where the text above quotes a regulation or a statute, that instrument governs and its own later amendments prevail over any summary. Where it quotes an institution’s explanatory page or a standard-setter, it is authoritative for how the body understands its own regime and for the figures the body itself publishes — and not for whether the regime works. Read the instrument for obligations, and look beyond the issuer for evaluation.

Related terms

• Compulsory Licensing
• Copyright
• Data Exclusivity
• European Patent Office
• Patent
• Trademark

From the AJG lexicon archive (July 2026).