Single Trade Mark Progress Has Been Made In Rome

The ongoing dispute between the European Commission and pharmaceuticalcompanies over the Commission's insistence that new products authorized centrally through the European Medicines Evaluation Agency use only a single European-wide trade mark received a fresh airing at the latest round of the trans-Atlantic Business Dialogue (TABD), in Rome, at the beginning of November (Marketletter November 17).

The Rome TABD meeting brought together senior industry figures, with Commission officials and Commissioner Martin Bangemann. The single trade make issue figured prominently in the meeting. Industry leaders reiterated their now-routine arguments against the single trade mark, which initially the Commission rebuffed, as usual.

News of how companies were starting to file new product applications through the decentralized route rather than the EMEA, because of the Commission's unofficial but strictly enforced single trade mark policy, eventually brought a trace of movement from the Commission.