How to treat family names when it comes to prior rights seems to cause a lot of questions and confusion. Like any other prior right the applicant has to show that the name has a legal protection in a member state. The legal situation for family names differs between countries. So, a referral to an applicable law is needed. If you are claiming a family name as a prior right, this falls under the category “other prior rights”.

You may consider that a family name sometimes also is used as a company name, trade name or business identifier. If so you can apply in those categories instead. Still documentary evidence proving the protection of the name is needed during Sunrise.

See section 17 about Family names in the Sunrise rules, which you can find on our web site in the in the Sunrise section.