News: Trademark registration in Ethiopia

Registration of trademark in Ethiopia

Ethiopia has been a member of the WIPO since 1998. Registration of trademark in Ethiopia is carried out according to the Madrid system, which gives additional advantages to the owners of international business, namely:

• Centralized system for filing of applications for registration of trademarks in Ethiopia and subsequent management of them (in case of operation of trademark in the territory of several states of the Madrid system, changing in the graphic image of the trademark should be fixed only once in one country, and any updates in other states will occur automatically);
• One international application for trademark in Ethiopia is equivalent to several national-type applications (trademark protection is provided not only in Ethiopia, but also within other countries participating in the Madrid system);
• There is no need to pay several fees and collect several packages of documents in different languages, because one set of documents and one fee paid are sufficient.

Procedure for registering a brand name in Ethiopia

The application for trademark in Ethiopia is submitted to the national office of own country together with the necessary package of documents, namely:

• Application to the International bureau of the WIPO (World Intellectual Property Organization), and the text is prepared in arbitrary form in one of the legitimate languages of the WIPO;

• The WIPO form (that is freely available on the official websites of the WIPO and ROSPATENT), completed in French or English;

• Check on payment of international fee for trademark in Ethiopia (paid in Swiss francs). it is provided with the application or within 3 months after its submission;

• Check on payment of the fee for filing this application (it is not obligatory documents, and added to the package upon the applicant’s desire).

The image of the trademark is attached to the indicated documents on the electronic medium.

After submitting the application to the Office of own country, the documents are forwarded to the WIPO, where the verification of the trademark takes place, namely: comparing the image with existing trademarks, checking for compliance with international and national legislation, and a number of other formal examinations.

Upon completion of verification of the trademark in Ethiopia, the WIPO registers the trademark in the international bulletin and sends a certificate of successful registration to the applicant. After that, the geographical scope of the trademark protection will be calculated (approximate time ranges from 12 to 18 months).