- European
2. The current trademark regulations in Kosovo are mainly based on the Trademark Law No. 04/L-026, which came into effect on September 8, 2011.
3. The Kosovo Industrial Property Office is responsible for managing trademark affairs, and the official languages are Albanian and Serbian.
4. At present, the Kosovo Industrial Property Office adopts the Nice Classification 11th edition for the description of goods and services and accepts multiple types of applications. In Kosovo, elements such as text, letters, numbers, graphics, 3D logos, colors, and their combinations that can distinguish a company's goods or services from those of other companies can be registered as trademarks.
Last year, the new trademark law in Kosovo abolished the requirement for trademark applications to include graphics, making the expression of trademarks more flexible and reducing restrictions on trademark applications.
Kosovo is currently not part of any international treaty, so trademark registration can only be processed through the "single country registration" channel.
10 years from the date of application. Renewal can be processed within 6 months before the expiration date, with a grace period of 6 months. Can be renewed indefinitely, with each renewal valid for 10 years. If a trademark is not actually used in the country for five consecutive years after registration, anyone may apply for revocation, except for force majeure factors.
If the applicant is not a Kosovo citizen or does not have a real and valid business premises in Kosovo, they must entrust a specialized agent in their region to handle it. The basic materials required for trademark registration in Kosovo are:
1. Trademark design;
2. Specific categories and product/service items;
3. Name and address of the applicant;
4. Power of attorney.
The application will be accepted approximately one week after submission. The examiner will conduct formal and substantive examinations on the application. Formal review mainly examines whether the application requirements and classification information comply with regulations; The substantive examination includes the examination of the distinctiveness of the trademark and whether it violates the prohibition and prohibition clauses.
If the review fails, a rejection notice will be issued and the applicant will be required to respond within the time limit specified in the rejection notice. After the substantive examination is approved, an announcement will be arranged, and a 3-month objection period will be set from the date of announcement. Any interested party or prior right holder may raise objections, and the main reasons for raising objections are:
1. Conflict with prior trademarks, such as owning a prior registered trademark;
2. The trademark lacks distinctiveness;
3. Malicious registration.
If no objection is raised or the objection is not established during the announcement period, the trademark will be officially registered successfully. If everything goes smoothly, trademark registration in Kosovo currently takes about 12 months; If there is any objection or rejection midway, the time will be extended.
When registering a trademark in Kosovo, there is no examination of "relative reasons", which means that the official will not actively review whether the applied trademark is similar to the prior trademark and reject it voluntarily. Therefore, the trademark is easy to pass the initial review and be announced. This requires the rights holder to continue to pay attention, monitor, and timely raise objections to protect their trademark rights even after the successful application registration.
