Trademark applicants in the European Union will have to wait a couple of years to see whether any part of the €370m ($490m, £340m) surplus that has built up due to spare fee income at the European trademark office is returned to them.

On Tuesday, the European Commission formally confirmed that the office – known officially as the Office for the Harmonisation in the Internal Market or OHIM – would cut fees for granting EU-wide trademark rights by around 40 per cent at the beginning of May.