Stages of Trademarks registration

Registration of a trademark (service mark) is an act to state the protected mark and the volume of its protection including colors and the list of wares and services.
A governmental body to fulfill functions in the field of protection and registration of trademarks (service marks) in Kyrgyzstan is the Kyrgyz Intellectual Property Office.
According to paragraph 3, article 3 of the Law of Kyrgyz Republic “Law on Trademarks…” “The holder of a trademark shall have the exclusive right to use and dispose of the trademark, and to forbid its use by other entities and individuals. No entity or individual in Kyrgyz Republic can use a trademark without permission of its holder”.

Contents

Steps for the trademark registration

Preliminary search/prescreening

Preliminary examination

Examination of the alleged mark

Fees for registration, publication and delivery of the Certificate

Registration, publication and delivery of the Certificate

The trademark certificate is a kind of “monopoly”, warrantable by the Kyrgyz law, for a certain mark of product or service of a certain market segment.

A registered trademark guarantees that nobody except you will be able to register an identical or similar trademark among homogeneous products or services.

Registration of a trademark (service mark) includes filing an application to the Kyrgyz Intellectual Property Office and payment of relevant fees. Upon completion of all steps of registration, a trademark certificate is issued. Period from the day of file of the application till the issue of the Certificate takes 14-15 months of the step-by-step work. Also, a accelerate trade mark registration procedure is possible; the accelerate procedure involves extra fees and takes 7-8 months.

Steps for the trademark registration

#	Steps	Period, month
1.	Preliminary search (nonbinding, optional)	0,5
2.	Preliminary examination	1
3.	Examination of the alleged mark (standard procedure)	11
4.	Fees for registration, publication and delivery of the Certificate	Up to 2
5.	Registration of a trademark in the Register	1
6.	Publication of data on registration in bulletin	1 – 3
7.	Issue of the Certificate of registration	1 – 3
	Total period of registration: some 15 months

Preliminary search

Предварительый поиск

Before filing an application for a trademark registration, we strongly recommend you our service of Preliminary search which consists of two steps: (i) Establishing a possibility of registration of a mark as a trademark and (ii) Checking of the mark in the registered trademarks database.

i. Establishing of possibility of registration of a mark as a trademark is a kind of service we provide to our clients free of charge. The matter is that there are lots of restrictions towards the things which cannot be registered as trademarks and as to how to register a mark to have it as “strong” as possible. For example, the marks which do not possess any distinctive ability (certain letters, abbreviations, technical signs, etc.), and do not specify the kind, quality, quantity, properties, destination, value of products, and time and place of their origin, manufacture or sale cannot be registered. At this step, some 10% of marks are screened, and 30% of them are to be modified and completed (“amplified”).

ii. Checking of a mark in the registered trademarks database is a necessary step since it saves essential money for our clients-principals. The check costs much cheaper than the trademark registration and at this step already some 35% of marks are screened as it shows that the same or similar marks which can prevent the principal’s trademark registration had already been registered. Cost of the check depends on what mark is being checked – verbal, graphic or combined.

Preliminary examination

Period of preliminary examination is 1 month. At this step the Kyrgyz Intellectual Property Office validates the correctness of application and completeness of documents (reproduction of the mark, power of attorney, fee payment receipt, etc.).

Examination of the alleged mark

Period of examination of the alleged mark is 12 months from the date of application. At this step the Kyrgyz Intellectual Property Office carries out:

Checking of conformity of the application materials to the requirements on contents and registration of the application;
Checking of the list of products and services and correctness of their grouping as per the ICGS;
Establishing a priority of the trademark;
Checking of conformity of the alleged mark to the registration conditions as set put in articles 4 – 5 of the Law of Kyrgyz Republic “Law on Trademarks”.

Fees for registration, publication and delivery of the Certificate

Upon making a positive decision on the trademark registration the applicant is given 2 months for payment of fee for the trademark registration, publication and delivery of the certificate.

Registration, publication and delivery of the Certificate

The exclusive right to the trademark begins on the date of publication of data on the trademark registration in the Kyrgyz State Register of Trademarks and in the official bulletin Intellektualdyk Menchik published by the Kyrgyz Intellectual Property Office. From this day only the legal holder of the trademark shall have the right to forbid using of the trademark by the third parties.