Quality Seals and Sound Marks - Changes due to the Trademark Law Reform

On January 14, 2019, the Trademark Law Modernization Act came into force in Germany. The main objective of the reform was to implement the EU Trademark Directive, i.e. ultimately to harmonize the provisions of the German Trademark Act with the provisions of the Union Trademark Regulation applicable to EU trademarks. The most visible changes are the introduction of a new form of trademark, the so-called "certification mark", and the elimination of the requirement for graphic representation of trademarks.

The certification mark, which has existed at Union level since 2017, will now also be introduced in Germany (Section 106a Markengesetz ("Trademark Act")). This special form of trademark aims at the test or quality marks which are important in practice and which, unlike "normal" trademarks, do not serve as an indication of origin for a particular company, but guarantee consumers a special quality of the goods or services, for example quality seals for organic food, for fair production conditions or special safety standards.

In addition, the graphic representability of a trademark (Section 8 of the Trademark Act) is no longer required at national level. Marks that cannot be represented graphically, such as sounds or holograms, can be protected as trademarks. The only requirement is that the mark can be represented in the register in such a way that the German Patent and Trade Mark Office (DPMA) and the public can clearly and unambiguously determine the object of protection. Due to the new forms of representation, trademark certificates issued by the DPMA will in future contain a link to the corresponding representation in the electronic trade mark register by means of QR codes.