Since 1 January 2021, an EU trademark no longer covers the UK. Before Brexit, a single EU trade mark (EUTM) protected your brand across the UK and the rest of the EU at once. Now the two are separate systems: a UK trademark protects the UK, an EUTM protects the 27 remaining EU member states, and neither reaches into the other. To protect a brand in both, you register twice.
If that catches you off guard, you are not alone. Founders routinely assume an old EU mark still covers Britain, or that one application still does both jobs. It does not, and the gap is invisible until a competitor exploits it. Here is exactly what changed, what happened to marks that already existed, and what to do now.
What changed at the end of the transition period
While the UK was an EU member, an EUTM (and before 2016, a Community trade mark) covered the UK as part of the bloc. When the Brexit transition period ended on 31 December 2020, that automatic coverage stopped. From the next day, an EUTM protected only the EU27.
The UK did not leave existing brand owners stranded. For every EUTM that was registered on 31 December 2020, the UK IPO automatically created a comparable UK trademark. These clones were free, needed no application, and kept the original EUTM’s filing and priority dates, so no one lost seniority. They carry a UK number made from the prefix UK009 followed by the last eight digits of the original EUTM. If you held a registered EUTM before 2021, you almost certainly hold a UK right today without having lifted a finger.
The trap: pending applications and the closed window
The automatic clone only applied to marks already registered by the cut-off. EUTM applications still pending at the end of 2020 were not cloned. Instead, applicants got a nine-month grace period, ending 30 September 2021, to refile the same mark at the UK IPO and keep the earlier EU filing date.
That window is long shut. If a pending mark was not refiled in time, its UK priority is gone, and any UK protection now dates only from a fresh application. It is worth checking your portfolio: a mark you assumed was “an EU registration covering us” may have slipped through this gap.
What to do now if you want both
For any brand from 2021 onward, protecting the UK and the EU means two filings:
- UK: apply to the UK Intellectual Property Office. £205 for the first class, £60 for each additional class.
- EU: apply to the EUIPO. €850 for one class, €50 for the second, €150 for each beyond. One EUTM covers all 27 member states, including the Republic of Ireland.
A couple of practical points. Northern Ireland is covered by the UK mark, not the EUTM. And since the transitional rules ended, EU-based applicants generally need a UK address for service to file a new UK application or to handle disputes. The figures above come from GOV.UK and the EUIPO fees schedule.
Check both registers before you file either
Filing in two jurisdictions doubles the cost of getting it wrong. A name that is clear in the UK can be blocked in the EU, and the other way around, and neither office refunds the fee if your mark is refused.
This is the gap trademarked.uk was built to close: it searches the UK and EU registers together, so you see conflicts on both sides before you commit to either application. For how to read the results, see how to check if a name is trademarked, then run your name through the free check below.