A trademark is a brand’s signature. It can be any symbol, logo, icon, word, phrase, design, or a combination of the things which helps identify an enterprise’s products/services from other products/services. Products and services are divided into 45 classes according to the NICE (International Classification of Goods and Services) classification agreement established in 1957 which is adopted Saudi Arabia. Each class represents a certain type of product or service by which there are 34 classes for goods and 11 classes for services. Classification of products and services is important to create a guideline for each product and service to be followed and protects your trademark from possible future infringement.
In order to register a trademark, it must be unique and distinctive, and the only way to achieve that is by searching for similar trademarks in the Trademark Registry for a fee. What you thought was a new and unique idea for a trademark may turn out to be registered already by a different person or enterprise.
Once the research is complete, and no similar trademarks are found, an application to register the trademark is submitted to the competent department in the Saudi Authority for Intellectual Property (SAIP) Ministry of Commerce online for a fee, by which the auditor reviews the documents and ensures their validity, the validity of their data and priority files if availableny. It is also important to note that a power of attorney document must be presented along with the application for registering a trademark.
After a trademark application is filed and submitted, the auditor transfers it to the examiner where he examines the application within 60 days to ensure that the trademark submitted for registration is in accordance with the trademark registration requirements and conditions in Saudi Arabia under the umbrella of the GCC trademark system.
Upon the approval of the examiner, the competent department publishes the registration in accordance with the relevant procedures mentioned in the Executive Regulations of the trademark law in Saudi Arabia for a fee.
This is the final step of the trademark registration process, by which the trademark owner receives a registration certificate which shall include the Trademark registration’s serial number, the date of the application and the date of registration, the name of the trademark owner, or the name of the enterprise if it is an enterprise, the place of domicile and nationality, a copy of the trademark, the full details of the products/services of the specified trademark and the class it is registered under, as well as the effective date of the trademark protection period which is 10 years.
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