Not every opposition to a European trademark is a failure

Of all the trademark cases I've handled, there's one that teaches more than any manual. We had registered a trademark at the European Union level (EUIPO), thinking of protecting the business in all 27 countries at once. An opposition arrived. Not one of those that can be resolved with a phone call: it was a full procedure, with substantive arguments from both parties. In the end, the opposition succeeded in the country where the prior rights that motivated it existed. Does that mean losing the trademark across all of Europe? Not necessarily. What we did was transform the European trademark into national trademarks, country by country, maintaining the original EUIPO priority date in all of them, except in the specific country of the conflict. Result: the company maintained its protection in practically all the territory it was interested in, with the same legal seniority as if nothing had ever happened, and only had to cede ground in the country where the real conflict existed. Not every opposition is a failure. Sometimes it's the starting point for strategy B. Did you know that a European trademark can be "saved" this way if it fails in a specific country?