Observations by third parties are effective tools because they allow anyone to argue and file evidence so as to limit the scope of protection of applications for industrial property rights or prevent them from being granted. It is advisable to follow up the observations by third parties with the surveillance of the application against which such observations were filed so as to evaluate their effectiveness and possibly intervene again if the situation so requires. The observations, unlike the oppositions, can also be filed anonymously.
Patents
Observations by third parties at the European Patent Office (EPO), at the World Industrial Property Organization (WIPO) and at national Patent and Trademark Offices – where the law so provides – are very useful to prevent the grant of competitors’ patent applications or limit their scope of protection.
Trademarks
Observations by third parties are filed e.g. when the trademark is in violation of absolute grounds (e.g. trademark consisting exclusively of the common name of a product, a geographical indication). Filing them may therefore be useful when there is an interest that a certain sign, e.g. commonly used in trade, does not fall within the exclusive rights of a single entity .
