The organisations licensed by the Bulgarian authorities to recover and recycle commercial packaging are disputing the rights of each other's members over the use of the so called Green Dot on their labelled products, denoting that they use separate collection, sorting and recycling of commercial packaging placed on the market. However, only one of the five licensed packaging recovery alliances - EcoPack, and its members holds the exclusive rights over the marking after becoming a licensee of ProEurope's Green Dot trademark on May 22, 2004. The other four - EcoBulPack, RePack and BulEcoPack and ReCoPack, can either use their own proprietary markings denoting good recycling practice or join EcoPack. EcoPack has detected the use of the Green Dot on the labelled products of non-members and has warned the companies in breach of the trademark regulations to discontinue the illicit use or face litigation. EcoBulPack and RePack are seeking an agreement with the holder of the trademark because their combined membership accounts for 70% of commercial corporations operating in Bulgaria. The five organisations licensed to recover and recycle commercial packaging have a total of 2,000 corporate members, said RePack manager Ivan Mihov. EcoBulPack has 1,200 members while RePack has 500, he said. Mihov announced plans for the creation of a new association that will represent the interests of the packaging recovery and recycling organisations before the central and local government authorities. EcoBulPack and RePack said the initiative is not motivated solely by the Green Dot spat. EcoPack said that goods bearing the Green Dot logo imported by non-members should be additionally labelled with the logo of the packaging recycling organisation to which the respective company belongs. The members of the other organisations said that if this demand is enforced, they would have to repackage their incoming goods. EcoBulPack pointed out that the Green Dot is a collective mark and not a trademark and as such does not merit an exclusive licence. The collective mark serves the purpose of distinguishing the goods and services of the undertakings belonging to the group from the goods and services of the other undertakings. EcoBulPack and RePack also pointed out that the agreement with ProEurope envisages the sublicensing of third parties. EcoPack managerial agent Nikolai Doichinov said only ProEurope can weigh in and determine if the licence can be used by more than one organisation. One of the Green Dot licensing requirements is that the respective packaging recovery and recycling organisation should not have recycling companies as actual members and its membership should be made up only of companies that recover commercial packaging.