Does filing my trademark in one country grant me rights in other countries?

Trademark protection is territorial in nature. As such, registering your trademark in one jurisdiction will not grant you protection in any other jurisdiction.

What are your fees?

Our filing fees will be automatically calculated and displayed as you use our trademark application interface. Our renewal fees will also be automatically displayed for Australia, New Zealand and Singapore trademark renewals.

For a full schedule of our fees, please refer here.

What is the Safe Route? What is included in the assessment report?

If you select the Safe Route for filing your Singapore trademark, we will provide you with a comprehensive report of your trademark application on all potential grounds of refusal.

Trademark examination is sometimes subjective and we cannot guarantee that our assessment will always match the outcome of the examination done by the trademark registry in Singapore.

Nevertheless, we are confident that we are more than qualified to provide an assessment of your trademark application based on years of experience examining trademarks in the Singapore trademark registry. If we get our assessment wrong and your trademark is deemed to be unregistrable by the IP Office for whatever reason, we will provide you with a partial refund of our fees according to our terms and conditions.

What are the common obstacles to registration?

There are three common objections that are raised by the trademark registry against trademark applications:

1. Lack of distinctiveness

A trademark is a sign that is supposed to help your customers recognise your goods and services among similar goods and services provided by other businesses. When your trademark lacks distinctiveness, it is unable to serve this function of distinguishing your goods and services. These are some common reasons why your trademark may not be distinctive:

1. Descriptive of goods and services – e.g. your trademark is “EasyWear” for slippers, or “Bubbly” for the soap you are selling. The trademark would be perceived to be a description of the goods or services, rather than a brand name.
2. Merely a promotional slogan – e.g. your trademark is “Your gift is in the present, savour it”. While there is an ongoing debate on the distinctiveness of slogans, the majority opinion is that all slogans are inherently promotional in nature and may not be viewed by customers as trademarks.
3. Merely a simple shape – this is usually the case when the trademark is a simple shape such as a circle or oval.
4. Consists of a pattern – when your trademark consists of a graphic pattern, it may appear to be a design of your product rather than a trademark intended to denote the commercial source of your product.
2. Similar to an earlier trademark

A trademark will fail to distinguish your goods and services if it is identical or similar to another trademark that is used for similar or identical goods and services.

To determine if your trademark is similar to another trademark, here are a few questions to ask:

1. Are the trademarks visually similar? Do they contain the same or similar looking words or images?

E.g. “Helium” vs “Hellium”

2. Are the trademarks aurally similar? Do they contain words that would be pronounced in a similar way?

E.g. “Adidas” vs “Ah Deedas”

3. Are the trademarks conceptually similar? Do they convey a similar brand concept?

E.g. “Holiday Bahamas” and “Vacation Bahamas”

4. Are the trademarks used for identical or similar goods and services?

E.g. you intend to use your trademark for “clothing” and the other trademark has been registered in relation to “t-shirts, jackets and bottoms”.

3. Vaguely worded or misclassified goods and services

This is by far the most common reason why trademark applications are objected to by trademark registries around the world. Most people are unaware of that the description of their goods and services needs to follow a certain standard defined by the trademark registry. Furthermore, each trademark registry has a slightly different standard for assessing these descriptions.

For example, the description “retail services” would be perfectly fine for a Singapore application. However, in most other countries, it would be unacceptable, as you are required to specify the type of products being sold under the retail services. For example, “retail services in relation to clothing”.

Fortunately, most offices also have their own list of pre-approved goods and services that applicants can use to avoid unnecessary objections. At Cat and Pillar, we strive to only use goods and services from the pre-approved list of each country. This will save you unnecessary fees and time needed to overcome these objections.

How do I check if my trademark has been taken by someone else?

Before filing your trademark, you may wish to perform a trademark search to ensure that your trademark has not already been filed by someone else.

As trademark protection is territorial in nature, you will need to ensure that you are using the correct platform for the country you are filing your trademark in.

Also, do remember that your trademark would only be deemed to conflict with another trademark if:

1. the trademarks are identical or similar to each other, and

2. the trademarks are applied for identical or similar goods and services.

As such, if you find a trademark that is identical or similar to yours, it is important to check if it was filed for identical or similar goods and services in comparison to what you intend to file for yours.

Below are some official resources where you can search your trademark for free: