Commission Regulation (EC) No 2246/2002
of 16 December 2002
on the fees payable to the Office for Harmonization in the Internal Market (Trade Marks and Designs) in respect of the registration of Community designs
THE COMMISSION OF THE EUROPEAN COMMUNITIES,
Having regard to the Treaty establishing the European Community,
Having regard to Council Regulation (EC) No 6/2002 of 12 December 2001 on Community designs1 and in particular Article 107 thereof,
Whereas:
In the light of Article 139 of Council Regulation (EC) No 40/94 of 20 December 1993 on the Community trade mark2, as amended by Regulation (EC) No 3288/943 which by virtue of Article 97 of Regulation (EC) No 6/2002 is also applicable to this Regulation the amounts of the fees should be fixed at such a level as to ensure that the revenue in respect thereof is in principle sufficient for the budget of the Office to be balanced.
Commission Regulation (EC) No 2245/2002 of 21 October 2002 implementing Council Regulation (EC) No 6/2002 on Community designs4 also deals with the conditions under which the fees established by Regulation (EC) No 6/2002 have to be paid to the Office.
To ensure the necessary flexibility, the President of the Office should be empowered, subject to certain conditions, to lay down the charges which may be payable to the Office in respect of services it may render, the charges for access to the Office databases and the making available of the contents of these databases in machine-readable form, and to set charges for the sale of the Office's publications.
In order to facilitate the payment of fees and charges, the President should be empowered to authorise methods of payment which are additional to those explicitly provided for in this Regulation.
The measures provided for in this Regulation are in accordance with the opinion of the Committee established under Article 109 of Regulation (EC) No 6/2002,
HAS ADOPTED THIS REGULATION: