FAQs

A trademark helps protect your brand identity, helps consumers recognize and differentiate your products or services from others, and can also increase the value of your business.

Trademarks can be registered for any distinctive word, symbol, design, or combination thereof that is used to identify and distinguish your goods or services from others.

If you have a unique brand name, logo, or slogan, you should consider obtaining a trademark to protect your brand identity and prevent others from using similar marks.

The cost to register a trademark varies depending on the country, the number of classes of goods or services associated with the mark and in some cases also on the type of the trademark. For additional information, see below.

In most countries/trademark offices, you must file a renewal application every 10 years to keep your trademark registration in force.

If you don’t renew your trademark registration, your mark will become abandoned, and you will lose your rights to it.

No, only in the countries where the trademark is registered. All EU countries can be covered with one registration, i.e. EU trademark registration.

If you plan to sell abroad, it is recommended to register the trademark in the target countries in advance. You should also not forget that you may already sell abroad through your own online store. Additionally, your own domestic client can also sell your products to other countries, for example through their online store or otherwise, in which case it is also worth registering your trademark in the target countries.

Manufacturing a product having a certain trademark is use of the mark, even if the product is not sold in the country of manufacture. In a bad case scenario, the export of the goods may be prevented if the trademark can be confused with a trademark registered by another party in that country. Trademark registration in the manufacturing country is therefore recommended.

Your current registration may help with trademark protection for installation and maintenance services of these products, but it is very uncertain. It is highly recommended to extend trademark protection to installation and maintenance services. However, they cannot be added to the current registration, a new trademark application must be filed.

No, trademark offices (EUIPO, USPTO, etc.) do not offer refunds for rejected trademark applications.

You can only use the ® symbol after your trademark is registered in the country you are using the trademark. You can use the ™ symbol to indicate that you are claiming ownership of a trademark, even if it is not yet registered. There is no legal basis that makes use of the symbol ® or ™ compulsory. However, if your trademark is not sufficiently distinctive for the goods/services in question, and for which you would like to build distinctiveness by using the mark to get a trademark registration, the use of the ™ symbol is highly recommended.

Yes, you can. A trademark may be used at any stage, even before filing the application. However, this use does not guarantee the registration of the trademark. Also,iIf someone else has a prior right to the mark to be confused with, that may affect your right to use the mark.

A trademark protects a brand’s identity and prevents others from using similar marks, while a copyright protects original creative works, such as literary, artistic, and musical works.

Yes, a trademark can protect your business name if it is used to identify and distinguish your goods or services from others.

A national trademark gives protection only in the European Union Member state in which it has been registered. An EU trademark registration covers all current and future EU Member States.

An official fee of 850 EUR must be paid for an EU trademark application, including one trademark class. The official fee for the second class is 50 EUR, and from the third class onwards it is 150 EUR/class. In addition to this, there will be our attorney fee of 395€. For reporting you about possible office actions, threads of oppositions/oppositions and other contact there might be relating to your application we will charge 180 EUR each. About costs thereafter we will inform you before you need to decide whether to proceed or not.

It can be filed in any of the 23 languages of the European Union. In addition to the filing language, a second language must be selected from the following five Office languages: English, French, German, Italian or Spanish. The second language must differ from the first language chosen and will be used as a language for possible opposition and/or cancellations proceedings.

The handling of an EU trademark application usually takes 1-2 months, but if the pre-approved terms have been used in the list of goods and services of the application, and the official fee is paid within a couple of days from filing the application, the handling of the application will only take 1-2 weeks. Possible office actions extend the handling time, as do possible oppositions made against the application. The opposition period is three months from the publication of the application.

An EU trademark registration is valid for 10 years but can be renewed indefinitely.

An international trademark application is submitted to WIPO via the national trademark office. WIPO will check the formalities of the application and then send it to the countries designated in the application. The national trademark office of each designated country processes the application for that country. Processing at WIPO typically takes 1-4 months, usually depending on how quickly the official fee is paid to WIPO and a possible irregularity letter is responded to. Depending on the country, the national trademark office has 12 or 18 months for processing the application. In many countries, however, it will not take that long. The processing time usually increases if an obstacle to the registration of the mark appears (for example, a previous right). In any case, trademark rights start from the date of the application, if the mark will be registered.

An official fee (basic fee) of 653 CHF or, in case of a mark in color, 903 CHF must be paid for an international trademark application to WIPO. In addition, there is a complementary fee and/or supplementary fee to be paid depending on the countries designated and the amount of trademark classes. In addition to this, there will be a government fee to the Office that transmits the application to WIPO and our attorney fee. For reporting you about possible office actions, threads of oppositions/oppositions and other contact there might be relating to your application we will charge 180 EUR each. About costs thereafter we will inform you before you need to decide whether to proceed or not.

Yes. In that case, the office will issue a provisional refusal, which we will receive from WIPO and inform you about. The provisional refusal may apply to the application in whole or in part. You will be given a deadline within which to respond to it. In general, the response must be submitted to the office through an agent operating in the country. There will be additional costs for work due to the provisional refusal. We, however, provide you with an estimate of the response costs so that you know the costs when deciding whether to respond to the provisional refusal or not. Receiving a provisional refusal is especially likely if the designated countries include the US, Canada, Japan and/or South Korea. However, the possible provisional refusals from these countries are typically given out at the earliest six months after the application is filed.

Yes, you can. For countries added later, the trademark rights begin on the day the application for designated additional countries is submitted to the office (and provided the application is accepted in additional countries).

The international application must be applied for the same mark the company has registered or applied for in its home country, and the applicant must also be exactly the same. The list of goods and services can be the same or narrower than in the registration or application in the applicant’s home country. For five years, the international registration is dependent on the validity of the national registration. If the national application is not accepted, the national registration is canceled or goods/services are removed from it during this time, this effect also applies to the international application/registration. However, in such a case, the international application/registration can be converted into a national trademark application in the designated countries, keeping the same start date of the trademark rights.

You only need to provide information about the trademark and your field of business (incl. the main goods and services you provide), after which you will receive the results of the trademark identity search and our recommendations, including a proposal for the application’s list of goods and services. After you have selected the mark or marks to be applied for as well as the goods and services for the application(s) and paid our fee, we will file the application and send a confirmation to you. After filing the application, we will charge you for the government fee, and we will inform you, if such a thing were to happen, of possible office actions, threads of oppositions/oppositions and other contact there might be relating to your application. Actions thereafter will be agreed with you.

For an EU trademark application, we charge 395 EUR and for individual countries from 150 EUR per country depending on the countries and whether an international or national application(s) will be filed. For reporting you about possible office actions, threads of oppositions/oppositions and other contact there might be relating to your application we will charge 180 EUR each. About costs thereafter we will inform you before you need to decide whether to proceed or not.