LSPN Europe 2017: Tips for choosing your pharma product name

Avoid using the colour blue and slogans when attempting to register a trademark for a pharmaceutical product at the European Union Intellectual Property Office (EUIPO), one lawyer has advised.

Speaking at the Life Sciences Patent Network (LSPN) Europe conference in London today, December 6, Ruth Hoy, partner at DLA Piper, provided some words of advice for those looking to register a trademark.

Registering a mark in the “overcrowded” class 5 (pharmaceuticals) can be difficult, as there are more than 150,000 names already registered at the EUIPO, she said.

Hoy advised brands to try to avoid common prefixes and suffixes such as ‘pharma’, over-used letters such as ‘x’ and ‘y’, and common symbols.

What should those attempting to apply for a trademark do instead?

The DLA Piper lawyer stated that the longer the name, the more likely it is that it will be seen as distinctive, and unusual combinations are also advised.

“There’s a slight tension between needing to come up with a distinctive name and wanting to use some descriptors to identify what its use is,” said Hoy.

She added that Brexit is likely to have a big effect on the exhaustion of rights in the UK.

“If we leave the European Economic Area completely, rights of exhaustion won’t apply in the UK.”

In September, the European Commission outlined its aims for the treatment of IP rights in the country after Brexit, which is set to take effect in March 2019.

On exhaustion of rights, the Commission said that rights which were exhausted in the EU before withdrawal should remain exhausted, both in the EU and the UK.

LSPN Europe is being hosted by Life Sciences IP Review.

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