MARQUES, the organisation of European trade mark owners, has submitted its comments before OHIM with regard to the Initiation Note on the Cooperation Fund.

In its capacity of observer before OHIM's Administrative Board MARQUES, represented by Tove Graulund, was invited to submit comments on OHIM's Initiation Note on the establishment and operation of the Cooperation Fund.

On 10 July MARQUES sent a position paper with feedback on the Note. The other signatory organisations were AIM, Businesseurope, ECTA and INTA. The MARQUES position paper welcomes the Note's statement that the ultimate aim behind the establishment of the Cooperation Fund should be to contribute to the optimisation of the functioning of trade mark systems across the European Union, further modernising trade mark registration procedures and technology, while eliminating unnecessary differences in practice which affect users. All of the signatories of the paper stressed the need for rigorous financial controls and transparency.

You can read the text of the position paper in full here.