On 22 January 2025, the TM5 partners held an awareness-raising seminar for the IP offices of Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and North Macedonia to discuss combatting bad faith trademark applications as part of the JPO-led TM5 Bad Faith Trademark project. This was the fourth edition of the TM5 Bad Faith Seminars, which have been conducted since 2022 with IP Offices in Southeast Asia.
For the first time, the TM5 Partners brought these discussions on bad faith filings and the laws and practices available to combat them to Europe. During the workshop, the IP offices exchanged information on the latest cases, the role of intent and declarations of use, how they consider evidence of malicious intent, reputed marks, repeated filings, and even public morality grounds to combat bad faith applications.
Some of the invited offices noted they do not have a legal basis to combat bad faith applications. The invited offices participated in the discussions with interest and indicated they will consider the information from the seminar in their national practices.
