How to Register Your Brand Name in Nigeria: A guide to Trademark Protection

As a business owner, you need to arm your business with the necessary registrations to ensure its long-term growth. Thus, protecting your brand should be a top priority as it involves taking steps to ensure that the intangible assets or technical know-how such as the words, logo, design, and methods carefully curated to distinguish your brand from others are protected by ensuring it cannot be replicated. This is where Trademarks steps in.

In its literal sense, Trade refers to buying, selling, or any commercial activity whether business or commerce, while a mark is a sign, symbol, name, label, or identifier used to distinguish something

“Hence, Trademark is A mark used in the course of trade to identify and distinguish a business’s goods or services.”

In Nigeria, the process of registering Trademarks is regulated by The Trademark Act 2004 (“The Act”) and The Trademarks Registry. The Act states that a trade mark may consist of the name of a company or individual, invented words, a distinctive mark amongst others while identical trademarks, confusing or scandalous words amongst others cannot be registered.

Documents/ Information required for Trademark Registration

The following documents are required for Trademarks Registration;

1. Details of the Applicant (name, address, phone number and email)
2. A representation and details of the mark (name or logo to be registered)
3. The classification of goods and/or services
4. A signed Power of Attorney authorizing an agent to register on behalf of the proprietor (where the owner is not a Nigerian)

Procedure for Trademark Registration

1. Conduct an Availability Search at the registry to ensure no existing marks conflict with the mark to be registered.

2. After confirming no conflicting mark exists, file an application after submitting the required details and paying the required fees. Once this is done, an Acknowledgement of Filing is issued immediately.

3. The application is carefully examined at the registry and an Acceptance Notice is issued by the Registrar of Trademarks usually within 10-14 working days. Where it is refused, the applicant is allowed to make written representations to the registry who then conducts a hearing before making its decision.

4. The registrar publishes the notice of application in the Trademark journal notifying interested parties to enter objections for the application where necessary. This opposition period is usually two months from the date of publication.

5. Where no objection exists or it was raised and dismissed, the applicant can apply for a Certificate of Registration which is available after about a year of publication upon payment of the required fees.

Importance of Trademarks

Protecting your brand name through trademarks is important for the following reasons:

1. It grants the applicant exclusive right to use the mark
2. It distinguishes your product, making it identifiable and prevents confusion in the market place
3. It promotes trust and good-will to the consumers
4. It increases the value of the brand as trademarks are intangible assets that increase in value as the business thrives- it can be licensed, franchised or sold for revenue.
5. It prevents unfair competition and production of counterfeit goods using the brand name to create substandard goods or services
6. It encourages innovation as the owners are rewarded financially and recognized as the sole owner of the mark.

Duration of Trademarks

It is also important to note that in Nigeria, a Trademark is registered for an initial period of seven years from the filing date and can be renewed indefinitely, each time for a period of fourteen years.

Registering your trademark is essential in promoting your brand name as it gives you the exclusivity over your brand assets and enables customers to identify your goods and services without fear of a counterfeit existence in the market.

Team 618 Bees

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The information in this blog post (“post”) is provided for general informational purposes only, no information contained in this post should be construed as legal advice, nor is it intended to be a substitute for legal counsel on any subject matter. No reader of this post should act or refrain from acting on the basis of any information included in, or accessible through this post without seeking the appropriate legal or professional advice from the particular facts and circumstances at issue from a lawyer. This post is protected by intellectual property law and regulations. It may however be shared using appropriate sharing tools provided that our authorship is always acknowledged and this Disclaimer Notice attached