About registering your trade mark

Do you want to protect the reputation of your product or service? Register your trade mark with the Companies and Intellectual Property Commission (CIPC), to prevent your competitors from using it.

CIPC administers the Register of Trade Marks, which is the official record of all the trade marks that have formally been applied for and/or registered in the Republic of South Africa, since 1916.

A trade mark can consist of a brand name, a slogan, a shape or a logo. It identifies the services or goods of one person/entity and distinguishes it from the goods and/or services of another person/entity.

Trade marks can be lodged in 45 different classes, depending on the goods and/or services in respect of which the trade mark will be used. Details of the international classification system, the Nice Classification System, can be obtained at www.wipo.int.

Once a trade mark has been registered, it grants an exclusive right to the holder/proprietor of the trade mark, and will allow the holder of the trade mark to institute civil action against anyone using the same or confusingly similar trade mark.

A registered trade mark can be protected forever, provided it is renewed every ten years upon payment of the prescribed official renewal fees.
 

What you should do

• Visit the CIPC website at www.cipc.co.za for information regarding:
  • the procedures to determine whether a trade mark you wish to use is available and does not belong to another person/entity
  • how to apply for a trade mark from application to registration procedures.
• All the required official forms are available from the CIPC website.
• Before you can apply for any services at CIPC, or lodge any documents, you are required to register as a CIPC customer, in order to transact with CIPC. The procedure to register is available from the CIPC website.
• Once registered as a customer, establish the correct class according to the Nice Classification for the goods and/or services in respect of which you will be using the trade mark, complete and submit an official application form (Form TM1), in triplicate, and submit to CIPC, together with the prescribed fee.
• Upon receipt of the application form, and prescribed fee, an official application number will be allocated to the application/s. All communications with CIPC must reflect the official application number.
• Upon formal examination, which takes place within 7-8 months from date of application, CIPC shall issue an official action indicating
  
  • the conditions for acceptance, or
  • grounds for refusal of, the trade mark application.
• Once the conditions for acceptance of the application have been complied with, a formal Notice of Acceptance will be issued. The notice must be advertised in the Patent Journal (electronically produced by CIPC), and published once a month.
• A statutory opposition period of three months follows from the date of advertisement, wherein interested 3rd parties may oppose the registration of the trade mark application as advertised.
• If no opposition is lodged, the trade mark registration certificate will be issued in due course.

Timeframe

A trade mark application will be examined and an official action will be issued within 6-8 months from date of application.  

How much does it cost

• A fee of R590.00 per class, per trade mark, is payable.
• A fee of R190.00 is payable for each class you require a special search in, to determine if there are no existing prior identical or confusingly similar trade marks, which could prevent the registration of yours.

Forms to complete

(Forms are provided in PDF format. To open PDF documents, you need to have Adobe Acrobat Reader 4 or higher installed on your computer.)

• TM1, Application for the regisAtration of a trade mark
• TM2, Notification or request to the Registrar
  

Who to contact