Trademark Registration in Ukraine

The Law of Ukraine “On the Protection of Rights to Marks for Goods and Services” as amended on April 10, 2008 is the principal legislative act in Ukraine with respect to trademarks and service marks.

Referred to as a trademark is a sign used by an individuals, business organizations, or other legal entities to distinguish their goods and services from those of other entities. Under the above Law, the legal protection is granted to a mark that does not contradict the public order, humane and moral principles. The object of a mark may be any sign or any combination of signs. Such signs may include, in particular, words, including personal names, letters, numerals, figurative elements, colors and combinations of colors, as well as any combination of such signs.

The right, title and interest in and to a mark are certified by a certificate. The term of validity of such certificate is 10 years in the date of filing the application. The term of certificate may be продливаться (перевел, как «продлеваться») extended at the request of the certificate holder once every 10 years. The volume of protection granted is determined by the mark image and the list of goods and services for which this mark will be used.

Under the above Law, the legal protection shall not be granted for signs that represent or imitate:

• State armorial bearings, flags, and other state symbols (emblems);

• Official names of States;

• Symbols and abbreviated or full names of international intergovernmental organizations;

• Official control, guarantee, or testing seals, stamps; and/or

• Decorations and other honorary signs.

Such signs may be, however, included in a mark as unprotected elements subject to a prior written consent of a competent or relevant authority or their owners. In addition, the legal protection shall not be granted for signs that:

• are usually devoid of distinguishing capacity and did not obtain such a capacity through their use;

• consist exclusively of signs that are commonly used as the signs of goods and services of a certain type;

• consist exclusively of signs that are descriptive, in particular, indicate the kind, quality, composition, quantity, properties, purposes, value of goods and services, the place and time of manufacturing or sale of goods or rendering of services;

• are deceptive or misleading as to goods or a service,

• consist exclusively of signs that are commonly used symbols and terms;

• present only the form caused by the natural state of goods, or by the necessity to get a specific technical result, or the form imparting the essential value to the goods.

Signs shall not be registered as marks if they are identical or confusingly similar to marks that were earlier registered or applied for registration in Ukraine in the name of another person for the same goods and services or related thereto.

In order to obtain a Ukrainian certificate for a trademark, you should apply for the grant of such certificate by filing an application with the Ukraine’s patent office (Ukrpatent). Such application is a package of properly executed documents. In order to obtain a certificate in any other country, you should file your application with the patent office of such country or file an international application.

After receiving an application, Ukrpatent performs an examination as to form and an examination. During the examination as to form, the date of filing the application is established and the compliance whereof with the requirements as to form set forth in the above Law is verified. During the examination, an examiner determines whether or not the sign applied for complies with the terms and conditions of granting protection, checks whether or not such sign was registered earlier. In the event that the examiner is satisfied, the applicant is granted a certificate. For each operation (for example, for filing the application, amendments incorporated with the application, an extension of time for reply, etc.), the applicant should pay the prescribed fee to Ukrpatent. For basic fees, please refer to the table below.

A period of time for trademark registration is between 1.5 years and 2 years of filing the package of application documents. There exist the opportunity to speed-up the trademark registration procedure. For speeding-up the registration, an additional fee is collected. In such a case, a period of time for trademark registration will be between 4 months and 1 year.

For additional information about trademarks, please refer to Mark under Law.

Because patent offices’ requirements for the preparation and execution of documents of a trademark application are rather strict, failure to comply with them may result in a long-lasting correspondence between the applicant and the patent office (this especially is the case in the event of overseas patent offices); the necessity to correct some or other errors in application materials; increase in periods of time of the examination of the application; and, as a result, the necessity to pay additional fees. When filing an application with the patent office of a foreign country, any errors during the preparation of the application are fraught later on with large financial costs. Furthermore, any errors and inaccuracies increase many times the risk of the rejection of your application.

The patent attorneys and experts of Patent Law Company INVENTA will take upon themselves the preparation and execution of all of the requisite documents of an application, carry out a search to discover the prior relevant art (if any) contained in the application, prepare a competent answer to a request of a patent office’s examiner, provide any advice or consultation concerning your application, help you to save both time and money as well as to reduce substantially the risk of the rejection of your application. Inventa’s experts warrant the nondisclosure of our customers’ application materials to any third parties.

Use services of professionals!

When filing a trademark application, you should submit the following documents:

1. Trademark image (in electronic and printed forms);

2. The list of goods and/or services for which trademark registration is intended;

3. The full name of the applicant in the Ukrainian language (company’s name and legal address or individual’s name and place of residence);

4. Power of attorney granted to the patent attorneys to represent the interests of the applicant before the respective establishments and organizations; and

5. Service agreement by and between the applicant and our Company.