The Board of Appeal is an independent pre-trial body that resolves appeals, in the cases provided by law, against decisions of the Estonian Patent Office, registration actions, refusals or delays in performing registration actions, as well as disputes between third parties and applicants or proprietors based on a third party’s notice of opposition, a request for the declaration of nullity or extinguishment of the exclusive right of the proprietor of a trade mark, a request for the revocation of legal protection granted to an industrial property object, or another request.
The Board was established in 1992, but its tasks, organisation, composition, procedures and location have been reorganised several times. As of 2019, the Board has been located at the Estonian Patent Office, but operates independently. In 2025, the Board operated with two permanent members. The Chairman of the Board is Tanel Kalmet, and Sulev Sulsenberg will continue as Vice-Chairman for the next term. In the event of settlement of a dispute by a collegial decision, one or two additional members from the experts in the field are included in the composition of the board. The list of additional members has been approved by the Minister of Justice from among the Patent Office officials, patent attorneys and other experts in the field. The list includes 38 additional members, including 20 from the field of trade marks. Marit Soomets has been serving as the Secretary of the Board since 2019.
The website of the Appeals Board and its subpages contain information on the objects and nature of the proceedings, along with references to the corresponding entries in the trade mark database of the Estonian Patent Office. In cases provided for by law, the decisions of the Board are published on the website. The collegial decisions of the previous composition of the Board can be found on a separate subpage.
The requests and appeals filed with the Board in 2025, as well as the collegial and exclusive decisions taken were predominantly concerned with trade marks. However, two requests concerning designs were also filed, one of which was rejected, and the Board terminated proceedings on one request concerning supplementary protection. In total, four appeals were filed with the Board during the year (2021: 3; 2022: 8; 2023: 3; 2024: 4) and 67 requests (2021: 86; 2022: 82; 2023: 64; 2024: 54). The majority of the requests filed (52) were requests for contesting the registration of a trade mark, while fewer requests concerned the declaration of nullity of the exclusive right to a trade mark (11) and applications for the declaration of termination of the exclusive right (2). Three appeals and 58 requests concerned Estonian national trade marks, whilst one appeal and nine requests concerned international trade marks. In 33 cases, the request was based on an earlier European Union trade mark. By month, the highest number of requests were received in August, October, and November (10), and the lowest in February, April, and October (3). Eleven requests were filed without using the services of a patent attorney.
In its substantive decision, the Board either rejects the appeal or request, or grants it in full or in part. In 2025, the Board made 32 decisions with two or three members, including with regard to three requests in one case. To the best of our knowledge, none of the disputes heard by the Board in 2025 will be pursued in court. The Board, acting collegially, fully granted 25 requests, granted 2 partially, and rejected 4 requests. The Board granted two trade mark appeals and dismissed one. If an appeal is upheld, the appellant is entitled to a refund of the state fee paid. Of the trade mark decisions, 27 concerned national trade marks and 7 concerned international trade marks. Sixteen decisions were taken in an accelerated procedure (2021: 18; 2022: 25; 2023: 25; 2024: 17 according to revised data), i.e. in situations where the applicant or proprietor had not indicated their intention to oppose the request. In 2025, 16 proceedings were closed by an exclusive decision (2023: 23; 2024: 31); in addition, the request was granted in two cases and in one case it was dismissed. Among the exclusive request proceedings, four (4) took place before the end of the settlement period (2022: 17; 2023: 7; 2024: 9), as a result of which the applicant was entitled to a refund of half of the state fee paid.
As a rule, disputes are resolved in written proceedings and a session is arranged only in exceptional cases. No sessions took place in 2025.
