Searching European Trademarks

I ran across the official website recently for the Trade Marks and Designs Registration Office for the European Union. It describes the office as the European Union agency responsible for registering trade marks and designs that are valid in all 27 countries of the EU.

There are searchable databases - start here

I haven't seen specifically how far back the database goes, but they do mention that the office was created in 1996. I need to dig around some more to see if I can find the actual date range of data included in the database...so more on that later, if I manage to dig up the info