This is what yesterday's issue of highly-respected magazine The Economist had to say about the situation that has been allowed to develop with regard to Community trade mark fees and the relationship between OHIM and national offices:

"What should be done with a growing pile of public money?

The European Union has known its share of surpluses: wine lakes, butter mountains and so on. But an unwanted pile of money is a first. The total stands at around €300m ($460m) and is going up by over €1m a week. The pile is accumulating in Alicante, at the European trademark agency, OHIM, and its existence is revealed in the agency's latest annual report, published on March 6th.

A non-profit body, OHIM has the monopoly to grant trademarks that offer intellectual-property protection across the EU. These have been granted to hundreds of thousands of firms around the world, despite costing more and taking longer to obtain than local trademarks. This success has generated more in fees than the agency needs to cover its costs. (OHIM offers a streamlined, paperless operation and does much of its business online, keeping costs down and speeding up the processing of applications.)

Today a European trademark costs €1,600, but Wubbo de Boer, head of OHIM, thinks that should be cut to €1,000. Fees fell by 25% in 2005 and last year, after much angry debate among ministers from member states who sit on its governing body, another cut was agreed on in principle. But the European Commission seems to be blocking it.

The trouble is that OHIM is ruffling the feathers of some national trademark offices, with which it competes. National governments use trademarks as a form of tax, and lower rates for the European version would undercut them.

Until recently there was a sleepy coexistence between the OHIM and its national counterparts. But now that more and more companies are opting for European trademarks rather than national ones, a number of national governments, mainly in new EU member states, have been lobbying for OHIM's fees to stay the same and for its surplus to be shared out among them.

Mr de Boer simply wants to cut prices, so that firms do not have to pay any more than necessary for intellectual-property protection. “I don't want to be a tax collector,” he says—unlike the national offices. He thinks some of the surplus could be held as a reserve, and some could be used to fund joint technology projects with national bodies; but most should be handed over to Brussels, while charges are reduced to stop a surplus from ever building up again".