Trademark registration

A register search, the filing and the correspondence with the office — through to the certificate in your hand. Where needed, with an industrial design patent alongside: in Ukraine and abroad through the Madrid System.

45 classes
of goods and services
120+ countries
through one filing
10 years
renewable without limit

Why

What registration buys you

  1. Exclusive rights

    Registration makes you the holder of the exclusive right to the mark, confirmed by state documents rather than by custom or by who started first.

  2. Protection

    Nobody else can register your logo in any of the 45 classes of the international classification, and use of a confusingly similar mark can be stopped.

  3. An asset you can sell

    From the day of registration the mark is property in its own right: it can be sold, licensed, franchised, pledged or passed on with the business.

Without registration the position reverses: the name you built is registered by somebody else — and it is then their right and your problem. Neither long use, nor a domain, nor a company name prevents that on its own.

What you receive

Two documents, and the register entry behind them

A trademark certificate and an industrial design patent, held up side by side
Left the certificate for a mark for goods and services. Right the patent for an industrial design. Both are state documents and both are entered in the public register.

What can be protected

Not only the name

A brand is rarely one thing, and separate registers cover separate parts of it. Most projects need more than one — which ones is worth deciding before the first filing.

  1. A name, a word, a logo

    The mark itself: a word, a device or the two combined, in some cases a shape or a colour. This is what a trademark certificate covers — the only one of the four rights that renews for as long as the business lives.

  2. The look of the product, and its packaging

    Shape, pattern, colour, texture; a label, a box, a garment. Registered as an industrial design, and several close variants of one design fit into a single patent.

  3. A website or an app interface

    The appearance of a screen is an industrial design like any other product's. It is rarely registered and routinely copied: the one part of a product a competitor takes without touching the name.

  4. Software, databases, content

    Copyright arises at the moment of creation, with nothing filed. Registration adds proof of authorship and a date — which is the whole of the argument on the day one happens.

  5. A technical solution

    An invention or a utility model, protected by a patent. This right is about how a thing works, not what it is called or looks like.

The four rights overlap on purpose. One bottle can carry a registered name, a registered shape and a copyrighted label — each fails in its own way, which is why they are taken together.

How it works

From a name to a certificate

  1. Search

    Before filing, the registers are checked for identical and confusingly similar marks in the classes you need. This stage prevents most refusals — and it is the cheapest place to find a problem.

  2. Classes

    Goods and services are grouped into 45 classes. The choice is as commercial as it is legal: too few classes leave gaps for a competitor, too many raise the fees for protection that will never be used.

  3. Application

    The mark, the applicant and the list of goods and services are drawn up and filed. The filing date fixes the priority, so it is worth reaching sooner rather than later.

  4. Examination

    The office checks the documents, then the mark itself — against absolute grounds and earlier rights. Objections and a provisional refusal are answered with argument and evidence.

  5. Registration

    The mark is entered in the register and published, and the certificate is issued. Protection runs from the filing date, not from the day the document arrives.

  6. Renewal and watch

    A registration lasts ten years and renews indefinitely. Between renewals the register is worth watching: another party's application is easier to oppose than a granted registration is to unwind.

The jurisdiction

How it is set up in Ukraine

The national registration goes through the state intellectual property office. The procedure is fully electronic, and the war has not stopped it.

  1. The office and the register

    Applications are examined by the national intellectual property office (UANIPIO): it runs the examination, publishes applications, keeps the register and issues the certificates.

  2. Electronic filing

    The application, the examination correspondence and the certificate itself are handled electronically. Presence in person is not required at any stage.

  3. Working under martial law

    The office accepts applications, runs examinations and issues certificates. For deadlines that cannot be met because of the war, the law provides for restoration — the right is not lost to circumstances nobody controls.

  4. Filing from abroad

    Owners who have left file on the usual terms: dealings with the office are remote, and where an action needs a representative, a power of attorney covers it.

No figures for terms and fees are printed here on purpose: the office sets them and they change. The current values are quoted at the consultation, against your list of classes.

Beyond the filing

The work that outlasts the certificate

A registration is not a document you file and forget. Nearly all the risk in a mark's life comes after the certificate: keeping it in force, answering the office, re-registering when the owner changes.

  1. Searches and monitoring

    A search before filing and a watch on the register after. A conflicting application is cheaper to oppose while it is still an application than a granted registration is to unwind.

  2. Overcoming a refusal

    A provisional refusal is an argument, not a verdict. Objections are answered with evidence, the list of goods is narrowed to clear an earlier right, a decision is appealed.

  3. Well-known mark status

    A well-known mark is protected beyond its classes — including against use that trades on the reputation without copying the mark outright. A separate procedure with its own evidence.

  4. Keeping the certificate in force

    The renewal falls due on a date nobody remembers, and one missed deadline can end a right that took years to obtain. Holding that date is the cheapest part of the whole work.

  5. Assignment, licence, franchise

    Three instruments move a mark or let others use it: an outright transfer of the rights, a licence on stated terms, a commercial concession — where the whole business format travels with the name.

  6. The domain and the mark

    A domain gives no right to the name, and a mark by itself gives no right to the domain. Where both matter, they are taken in an order that leaves no gap.

International

One filing, many countries

  • One application and one set of fees — protection in more than 120 countries.
  • Renewals, changes of name and address, new countries — handled centrally rather than country by country.
  • Open to you if you live in, hold citizenship of, or run a real business in a member state.
  • Fees are a basic part plus a component per country; WIPO sets them, and the quote follows your list.
  • Where Madrid does not reach, the filing goes directly to the national office; in some markets a direct filing is wiser even where Madrid covers them.
  • A refusal in one country does not sink the international registration: it stands in the rest.
WIPO Madrid System

Also handled

The rest of the practice

  1. International registration

    Filing through the Madrid System, or directly with national offices.

  2. Registration in export markets

    Protection in the countries where the trade actually happens, in the order the business dictates.

  3. Industrial designs

    The appearance of a product — shape, pattern, packaging — separately from the name on it.

  4. Inventions and utility models

    Drafting and prosecuting a patent application for a technical solution.

  5. Copyright

    Registration and proof of authorship where the right arises on creation but has to be provable.

  6. Enforcement

    Acting on infringement: a demand, an opposition, the customs register and court where it comes to that.

Contracts

Who owns what you paid for

Commissioning work does not by itself transfer the rights in it. Until that is written down the rights stay with the maker — and a registered mark is worth a good deal less beside a site whose code belongs to somebody else.

  1. Development and services

    The agreement the work runs under: scope, acceptance, payment — and the clause that is usually missing: an express transfer of the economic rights in the result, not a licence.

  2. Inside the team

    Contracts with developers, designers and managers. Rights to an employee's work and to a contractor's arise differently, and only one of the two happens without a separate paper.

  3. Non-disclosure

    An agreement that names what is confidential, for how long, and what counts as a breach. Without those three points an NDA is a formality that will not survive a test.

  4. Between founders

    Who keeps the mark, the code and the domain if the founders part. Settling it while everyone agrees costs one document; settling it later costs the company.

  5. With investors

    What the money buys, what the investor approves, and where the intellectual property sits if the round does not close.

Around the site

What a shop needs besides the mark

Nothing here is registered or filed with an office — which is why the block stands apart. These are the documents a shop is required to publish, and the ones a payment provider or a marketplace asks for before working with you.

  1. The public offer

    The terms a customer accepts by ordering: what is sold, delivery, payment, returns, whose risks. For a shop this is the contract — read or not.

  2. Personal data

    What is collected, why, for how long and who else sees it. A shop gathers more than its owner thinks: addresses, phone numbers, order history and whatever the analytics adds.

  3. Cookies and consent

    A notice on which cookies are set, and a mechanism that asks before the non-essential ones fire. The second half is the one most sites skip.

  4. Returns and complaints

    The customer's procedure and the deadlines you are held to. Written down once, it stops being renegotiated case by case.

When it is ignored

Where a right is actually enforced

A certificate is the beginning of an argument, not its end. Four of the five routes below are not courts, and the first closes more disputes than the rest put together.

  1. A demand, first

    Most infringement ends at a letter: the right, the disputed use, the consequences of continuing. The cheapest step — and the most effective one.

  2. Opposition and invalidation

    A pending application can be opposed; a granted registration can be attacked after. Both routes run through the office, not a courtroom.

  3. The customs register

    A registered right is recorded with customs — suspect goods are stopped at the border rather than found on sale.

  4. Unfair competition

    Copied packaging and passing off are the competition authority's domain, and acting there does not always require a registration.

  5. Court

    An injunction, damages and destruction of the infringing stock — when the earlier steps have been tried and have not worked.

Questions

Before you write in

A certificate for the trademark, and a patent where an industrial design is registered. Both are state documents in the public register: they are what you produce when the right has to be shown to exist.

Months rather than weeks; the term depends on the office and its backlog. A realistic estimate for your case comes before filing, not a figure from a brochure.

Ten years from the filing date, renewable in ten-year terms without limit. Unlike a patent, a mark never has to expire — as long as it is renewed and used.

The fees are set by the offices and depend on the classes and countries; the Madrid System charges a basic part plus a component per country. What matters is the figure quoted against your list — it is named before filing.

Yes. The office accepts applications, runs examinations and issues certificates; filing and correspondence are electronic. Deadlines that cannot be met because of the war are restored.

Yes. The procedure is remote from application to certificate; where a representative is needed, a power of attorney covers it. The owner's location does not affect the right.

Yes: a screen layout is an industrial design, like a bottle or a chair, provided it is new. Several states of an interface fit into one patent — for screens that is the usual route.

While the application is pending it can be opposed; after a certificate issues, the route is invalidation — slower and heavier on evidence. The first step is the register, the second is how long you can show your own use.

Sometimes: unregistered use in a distant class may not block you, an identical mark in your class certainly will. That is exactly what the search is first for.

A refusal is usually provisional and answerable: argument, evidence, a narrower list of goods. The decision can be appealed. A proper search beforehand keeps such cases rare.

Any of the three can hold a mark. The choice is worth making deliberately: it decides the mark's fate when the business is sold, changes form or winds up — re-registration is possible, but it is a separate procedure.

Start

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The name or logo and what you sell under it — that is enough. The first thing done is a register search: if it turns up a problem, you will hear about it before any money goes to an office.

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