UNIVERSAL TRADEMARK REGISTRATION SYSTEMS AND THEIR TYPES
The article deals with an important theoretical and practical aspect of trademark registration - the classification of registration systems. The purpose of this article is to determine the criteria for the classification of national and regional registration systems, as well as to identify universal types of registration systems based on these criteria. The methodological basis of the work was the dialectical method of scientific knowledge, system analysis, as well as methods of deduction and induction. In the course of studying the legislation of a significant number of States in the field of trademark registration, some similarities and basic differences were identified, which were systematized into criteria according to which each registration system can be attributed to one of three universal systems: public, opposition or mixed. Based on the criteria found, the article analyzes the features that form a particular registration system, as well as provides examples of countries to illustrate the application of the methodology for assigning a particular national or regional registration system to one of the universal types of systems. There are 2 such criteria: 1) whether the public registration authority conducts an examination of the designation for the presence of relative grounds for refusal of registration, whether such an examination, if such grounds are identified, entails a refusal to register the designation as a trademark; 2) whether there is a clear mechanism in the state legislation for filing third-party objections to the registration of the claimed designation at the stage of its registration, whether the procedure for filing objections by third parties is a mandatory stage of registration of the designation, along with the examination. The theoretical significance of the work lies in the doctrinal identification of the types of universal registration systems based on certain criteria. The practical significance lies in the fact that the conclusions proposed by the author can be used when choosing a model of the registration system.