Amendments introduce definition of collective and certification marks for the first time

On June 18 2015 the Council of Ministers of Albania enacted Decision No 1706 “On Some Amendments and Additions to Decision No 1706, dated December 29 2008 of the Council of Ministers, on the Approval of the Regulation for the Registration of Trademarks and Service Marks”.

The amended regulation contains many improvements in terms of the specification of most of the already-existing clauses.

Among the additions, the most notable novelties are:

• there is a list of elements that can be considered as a 'trademark' in the first section entitled “General Provisions”; and
• a new section entitled “Collective Trademarks” has been added.

A ‘collective trademark’ is a trademark that serves to identify the goods and services of the members of an association or any other legal organisation established by commercial subjects, which produce goods, offer services or provide the goods and services of others. The organisation is the owner of the collective trademark. When applying for a collective trademark, the applicant - in addition to the documents necessary for ordinary trademarks - shall submit a regulation concerning the use of the collective trademark.

Together with collective trademarks, a new clause in the same section - entitled "Certification Trademarks” - has been added. It defines a 'certification trademark' as a trademark which proves that goods and services have been certified by the trademark owner as to their origin, material, methods of preparation and quality, among other things.

The new regulation envisages that Law No 9974, dated July 7 2008 “On Industrial Property”, as amended, applies to both collective trademarks and certifying trademarks, in the same way as it applies to ordinary trademarks.

Renata Leka, Boga & Associates, Tirana