Trade Marks Act 1994

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The United Kingdom Trade Marks Act 1994 is the current law governing trademarks within the UK. It implements an earlier EU Directive which forms the framework for the trade mark laws of all EU member states.

The Act provides both civil and criminal law sanctions for the misuse of registered trade marks.

Section 93 of the Act makes enforcement of the criminal sanctions the duty of the local Weights and Measures Authority (usually the Trading Standards department) and imports enforcement powers from the Trade Descriptions Act.

Similar criminal law provisions are written into the related Copyright Designs and Patents Act but, despite industry pressure, have not been put into force.

The UK Patent Office, which deals with Trade Mark registration has recently implemented a national intelligence database Tellpat available to enforcement officers. Thus this is rather tragic to the implementation of the mark.