Trademarks and Service Marks. How to Submit an Application?
Trademarks, service marks, and commercial names and designations are the signs used to identify and distinguish goods or services produced or provided by a specific person (or enterprise) from similar goods or services of other persons (or enterprises).
The signs which can be registered as trademarks are one or a combination of words, including proper names, colors, letters, numerals, figurative or three-dimensional forms, including shapes of goods and their packaging. Other signs can be registered as trademarks in the cases stipulated by the laws of the Republic of Belarus.
Trademark can be registered in any color or a color combination.
Legal protection of trademarks in the Republic of Belarus is provided on the basis of the trademark registration with the National Centre of Intellectual Property (hereinafter referred to as “the Centre”) or in compliance with the international agreements, in particular, the Paris Convention for the Protection of Industrial Property, the Madrid Agreement Concerning the International Registration of Marks and the Protocol Relating to that Agreement (the Madrid Protocol).
Application filing with the patent office, prosecution of a patent application at the patent office may be carried out by the applicant independently or through a patent attorney, who is registered with the patent office. The applicants who have their principal place of business or place of permanent residence in foreign countries, or their foreign patent attorneys handle the matters, related to filing a trademark application and trademark registration in the Republic of Belarus, through the patent attorneys, unless otherwise is established by the international treaties of the Republic of Belarus.
For each trademark or service mark a separate application shall be prepared in compliance with Chapter 3 of the Regulations on the procedure for trademark and service mark registration.
The application shall have the following documents attached:
The Manager of Goods and Services of WIPO is advised to use to fill out the list of goods of the Applicant (more details...).
To fill out column 6 of the application, an applicant is advised to use the list of ICGS in (Russian version) modified and improved by the experts of the trademarks department of the Center, which has a relevant classification and contains exact terms (link to ICGS, Russian version).
Next documents shall be attached to the application:
The unions, associations and amalgamations of other joint legal entities are entitled to register collective trademarks. The collective trademark and the right to exploit an IP right cannot be transferred to another party.
The trademark registration is valid for 10 years from the date of filing an application. The validity of the trademark registration can be extended upon request of the trademark right holder filed during the last year when the trademark registration is valid, each time extending validity for 10 years.
Belarusian legislation provides for exclusive right to use trademark on the territory of the state. The trademark holders are entitled exclusively to grant license to other persons to use their trademark for certain goods and services.
Bringing the level of trademark protection up through the registration of domain name.
The application documents shall be prepared in compliance with the normative legal acts:
A consultation on application filling out and filing procedure is available: