Welcome to Tuesday, Europe. Here’s the latest news and analysis from Bloomberg Economics to help you start the day:

• Freight hauliers are rejecting more cargoes due to cross the U.K. border because of post-Brexit customs friction
• Chancellor of the Exchequer Rishi Sunak’s determination to bring Britain’s public finances under control marks a very different tone from the global consensus
• In the country with the longest history of negative interest rates, the currency is now so strong that there’s speculation Danish policy makers will need to step in
• The European Central Bank “can and must react against” any unwarranted rise in bond yields that threaten to undermine the euro-area economy, Bank of France Governor Francois Villeroy de Galhau said
• Australia’s central bank kept its key policy settings unchanged, while reinforcing a commitment to its three-year target following a campaign of shock-and-awe in bond markets
• Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond President Thomas Barkin played down recent Treasury market volatility, in remarks that reinforce the message that the U.S. central bank is not yet troubled by the increase in yields
• New Zealand’s central bank said it’s watching financial markets closely for signs of dysfunction and warned it has the ability to increase its weekly bond purchases if needed
• U.S. manufacturing expanded in February at the fastest pace in three years and a gauge of materials costs accelerated the most since 2008 as supply shortages challenge the industry
• President Joe Biden’s nominee for trade chief said she’d work to ensure that tariffs imposed by the Trump administration on imported Chinese goods are appropriate, signaling no immediate changes

Susan Boylan, director analyst in the Logistics Strategy and Operations Team of Gartner, Inc., describes the key changes in tariffs, immigration rules and customs clearance procedures that U.K. logistics providers are grappling with right now as a result of Brexit.

Despite the years of wrangling over the terms of Great Britain’s exit from the European Union, many importers, exporters and logistics leaders have been caught by surprise over the details of the final agreement. Their “palpable sighs of relief” over conclusion of negotiations have turned into shock over the complexities that U.K. companies face in doing business with EU countries. Now, says Boylan, products must be strictly classified by rules of origin, in order to ensure that they qualify for preferential tariffs laid out in the free trade agreement. That’s not easy for some items that are sourced from multiple locations, such as food, automobiles, footwear and chemicals. Some organizations have decided to pay applicable tariffs, rather than go to the trouble of tracing the classification of their goods.

Yet another thorny issue arising from Brexit is the status of skilled workers employed in the U.K. but holding EU citizenship. Companies desiring to source labor from the EU are now required to identify an immigration sponsor and pay an accompanying recurring fee for each individual worker. All affected employees must apply for EU settlement by July in order to keep working in the U.K.

Finally, U.K. companies attempting to import product from the EU are encountering huge headaches in customs clearance and inspection requirements. Currently, one in five consignments are being sidelined because they lack the proper declarations and paperwork. That has led to a severe capacity crunch in transportation services for goods moving into and out of the U.K. “It’s pure disruption at the moment,” Boylan says.

On January 1, 2021, European Union (EU) trademark registrations stopped covering the United Kingdom (UK) as a result of Brexit. U.S. applications based on an EU registration and filed by UK applicants on or after this date may be affected and are discussed below. UK applicants include applicants with a UK entity and UK address, a non-EU entity and UK address, or a UK entity and non-EU address. Read the withdrawal agreement between the UK and EU.

After January 1, 2021, all EU trademark registration owners should have received a comparable or cloned UK registration from the UK Intellectual Property Office (UKIPO). The cloned registration number consists of the prefix UK009 and the last eight digits of the EU registration number. All other data (including the trademark, goods or services, registration date, and expiration date) in the cloned UK registration should be identical to that in the EU registration. Learn more about EU trademark protection and comparable UK trademarks.

This webpage guidance issued in March 2021 supersedes any previous United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) guidance, to the extent there are any conflicts.

Specific U.S. applications affected by Brexit

U.S. applications based on §44(e)

If you’re a UK applicant and want to file for a U.S. trademark registration under Trademark Act §44(e), you may not use an EU trademark registration, if both of the following are true:

• The EU registration issued on or after January 1, 2021.
• Your country of origin is only the UK, not the EU.

To file in the United States under §44(e) based on an EU registration, you must be able to establish that one of the remaining countries in the EU is your country of origin. See TMEP §§1002.01, 1002.04.

U.S. applications based solely on §44(d)

If you’re a UK applicant who filed a U.S. application only under §44(d) based on your EU foreign application, we presume you’ll also be registering your trademark based on §44(e), and you’ll need to establish the EU is your country of origin prior to registration.

Learn more about filing based on §44(d) and §44(e).

U.S. filings and proceedings not affected by Brexit

The following U.S. applications, registrations, and Trademark Trial and Appeal Board (TTAB) proceedings aren’t impacted by Brexit:

• Based on §44(e) and claiming foreign registrations from countries other than the EU.
• Based on §44(e) and claiming the EU as a country of origin, but can show Paris Convention eligibility in a current EU member country.
• Based on §44(d) and §1 combined bases, and not asserting a §44(e) basis.
• Based solely on §1(a) or §1(b).
• Based on §66(a) (Madrid Protocol).
• Registration maintenance filings.
• TTAB proceedings (will only be affected in very rare situations and a party may file a §7 correction or amendment).

Examination of U.S. applications affected by Brexit

The guidance in the table below shows how we’ll examine U.S. applications that meet the following criteria:

• Examined on or after January 1, 2021.
• Filed by a UK applicant, as stated above.
• Based on §44(e) claiming an EU registration or based on §44(d) that also completes a §44(e) basis with an EU registration.

EU registration date	EU/UK clone registration expiring or expired before U.S. registration issues	Issues with U.S. application	How USPTO will examine U.S. application*
Issued before January 1, 2021 (Applies to EU and UK cloned registrations)	No	Applicant may rely on UK cloned registration to support §44(e) basis.	Examining attorney will update our records to reference UK cloned registration number. Examining attorney will issue an examiner’s amendment letting you know about the update. No action on your part is needed. If you receive an office action with an advisory about updating the records to the UK clone, you will need to address the other issues in the office action to avoid abandonment of the U.S. application.
Issued before January 1, 2021 (Applies to EU and UK cloned registrations)	Yes	Applicant may rely on UK cloned registration to support §44(e) basis.   Applicant’s UK cloned registration will expire within six months after the date of approval for publication. See TMEP §1004.01(a).	Examining attorney will issue a nonfinal office action requiring either (1) proof the UK cloned registration was renewed, or (2) proof the EU registration was renewed and evidence of the EU being applicant’s country of origin. See TMEP §1002.04. If you respond that proof of renewal of the UK cloned registration is pending, examining attorney will suspend your application. See TMEP §1004.01(a). If you’re relying on proof of renewal of the EU registration and do not provide country of origin evidence, the suspension letter will include an advisory that evidence has not been provided and that refusal is maintained and will be made final when the application is removed from suspension. See TMEP §716.01.
Issued on or after January 1, 2021 (Applies to EU registrations only)	No	USPTO will presume the EU is not the UK applicant’s country of origin. See TMEP §1002.04.	Examining attorney will issue nonfinal office action refusing EU as applicant’s country of origin. See TMEP §1002.04. For applications based only on §44(d) that also will complete a §44(e) basis, examining attorney will issue advisory applicant will receive a future refusal EU is not applicant’s country of origin.
Issued on or after January 1, 2021 (Applies to EU registrations only)	Yes	USPTO will presume the EU is not the UK applicant’s country of origin. See TMEP §1002.04. Applicant’s EU registration will expire within six months after the date of approval for publication. See TMEP §1004.01(a).	Examining attorney will issue a nonfinal office action requiring proof the EU registration was renewed and refusing EU registration because not from the applicant’s country of origin. See TMEP §1002.04. If you respond that proof of renewal is pending, examining attorney will suspend your application. See TMEP §1004.01(a). If you don’t provide country of origin evidence, the suspension letter will include an advisory that evidence has not been provided and that refusal is maintained and will be made final when the application is removed from suspension. See TMEP §716.01.

*In a multiple basis application, if the §44(e) basis cannot be completed, the UK applicant may delete the §44(e) basis and proceed with §1(a) or §1(b) filing basis. See TMEP §§806.03(j), 1002.01. UK applicants also have the option to substitute a §1 basis for a §44(e) basis or provide a different foreign registration from a country other than the EU (e.g., the UK), if they can establish the registration is from their country of origin.

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Photographer: Chris Ratcliffe/Bloomberg

Freight hauliers are rejecting more cargoes due to cross the U.K. border because of post-Brexit customs friction, and that’s likely to become the new normal.

That’s the conclusion of the logistics platform Transporeon, which publishes high-frequency data about shipments in the region. It found the rejection rate for moving goods from France to the U.K,. rose to 38% above its third-quarter average.

While down from its peak, the reading is settling into a what seems to be a permanently higher level. Truckers say they’re frustrated about the amount of paperwork it takes to move goods across the border, and the complexity means more cargoes are not economical to move.

New Normal

High-frequency data show the higher cargo rejection rate is going nowhere

Source: Transporeon

“We may observe a normalization at higher levels now,” said Stephan Sieber, the company’s chief executive officer.

Cross-Channel freight volumes remained significantly lower, with about half as many goods traveling from the U.K. to the EU last week compared to the same period in 2020.

Bureaucracy was supposed to be less but seems much worse.

And the requirements for selling UK fish to Europe or mail order sales to Europe or taking horses to race in Europe seem not to have been properly thought out.

UK language students are having to pay for expensive visas and prove an adequate income for their year studying abroad.

We hear almost nothing about the positive side of Brexit – new markets, simpler regulations, less bureaucracy.

The UK vaccination success is sometimes cited but it seems to be more about the vaccine task force than about a set of different regulations.

Richard Drax writes a regular column for your paper. Could he be asked please to write a piece giving some positive examples of how leaving the EU has helped our economy, as a counterweight to the bad news stories?

Or is the news universally bad?

STEPHEN BENDLE

Beech Road Weymouth

NewsPolitics

Police Scotland concerned about ‘loyalist sentiment’ as result of Brexit

A senior police officer has said the force is “keeping a very close eye” on loyalist sentiment in the west of Scotland as tensions rise in Northern Ireland about the sea-based border created by Brexit, MSPs have been told.

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