Delegates attending the WIPO Standing Committee on the Law of Trademarks, Industrial Designs and Geographical Indications (SCT), which ran from October 25 to 29, made significant progress in fine-tuning legal texts to revise the existing Trademark Law Treaty (TLT), bringing it in line with the technological advances of the past decade, the Organisation explained.

The Standing Committee meeting was attended by 83 member states, 3 intergovernmental organizations and 11 non-governmental organizations.

In order to keep pace with developments in telecommunications and to create an institutional framework allowing the adaptation of certain administrative details regulated under the treaty, the revision of the Trademark Law Treaty (TLT) envisaged the inclusion into the agreement of provisions on the electronic filing of trademark applications and associated communications, provisions concerning the recording of trademark licenses, relief measures when certain time limits have been missed, and the establishment of an assembly of the contracting parties.

Those attending the meeting also reportedly reached consensus on a range of articles and rules including the marks to which the treaty applies, questions relating to communications, measures in case of failure to comply with time limits, duration and renewal of registration, and questions relating requests for recordal, amendment or cancellation of a license.