Trademarks – domestic and foreign costs and fees

Trademark is a powerful tool to protect your brand from copycats, and is also an effective mean towards monetizing your intellectual property. It safeguards your logos, catchphrases, slogans, product names, jingles, or distinctive animations. But how costly is it? The answer is: not much.

Trademark fees depend on:

• the list of goods and services
• the territory, for which it is valid
• the period for which it is valid (usually 10 years, with each subsequent renewal must be paid an additional fee)

If you want for your brand the best protection possible, you should contact a patent attorney. In some cases (i.e., when registering trademark abroad) you even have to use the services of a representative. Their fees, together with the office’s fees, will then be reflected in the resulting price of the trademark.

How much is a Czech national trademark?

Fees for filing a trademark in the Czech Republic start at CZK 5,000 in the case of an individual trademark for up to 3 classes (i.e., categories) of goods or services. Each additional class is CZK 500.

Before submitting the application, we recommend that you take the time to do a thorough research. This is to ensure that the sign you want to protect does not interfere with other active trademarks. The Industrial Property Office does not conduct this research. Without doing it yourself, you could face a dispute or forced rebranding.

Don’t forget to add patent attorney’s fee to the administration fees. In our case it is CZK 5, 500 without VAT for an individual trademark with 3 clases.

Foreign trademark costs and fees

A trademark is valid for 10 years (and can be renewed almost indefinitely). For it to truly protect your brand, it should cover what you do now, and also your future growth. Before registering a trademark, ask yourself the following questions:

• Are you planning on expanding?
• Where is your competition?
• What markets are significant to your business?
• What markets you can’t afford to lose?

Considering these factors can save you some costs, especially if you want to take your brand abroad. There are ways to apply for a trademark in multiple countries, which help you cut down the fees and administrative work.

Of course, you can fill a national application in the selected countries separately. Sometimes, this might actually be the best way – especially if you seek protection only in 2 countries. Each application comes with its own fees, deadlines and administration.

EU Trademark

Thanks to the unified system of European Union Trademark, you can protect your brand in the EU with just 1 application. Which means less deadlines to watch and lower fees to pay.

However, wider territory also means a higher risk of colisions with other registered trademarks. Since the whole EU is included, even 1 colision in 1 member state might put your trademark application at risk. Thorought research is therefore an essential prerequisite for effective protection.

The fees for its submission are quite low, considering it covers more than 25 states. They start at €850 (approx. CZK 21,000) per 1 class.

International trademark filling

Outside the EU, you can file an international application. Same as the unified system of EU trademark, this international one helps you reduce the administrative works connected to the application, as you file and pay only once. However, that’s where the similarities end.

International filling applies to countries designated in the Madrid Agreement and the Madrid Protocol (more than 100 parties). When submitting the trademark application, you have to choose the countries you would like your protection to expand to. Expand, because this international filling has to be based on an already existing national trademark. The international application has a 5-year dependency period, within which they depend on the national trademark.

The fees start at CHF653 (approx. CZK 16, 000) and depend on the number of selected countries, classes etc.