- North & South America
2. The legal basis for trademarks in the Dominican Republic is Law No. 1450, promulgated on December 30, 1937; Law No. 3763 promulgated on February 11, 1954; Law No. 290 promulgated on June 30, 1966; The first regulation issued by the Ministry of Industry and Commerce on February 6, 1992, clarified the concepts of trademarks and trade names.
3. Managed by the Dominican Trademark Office, the official language is English.
4. Trademark registration is based on the principle of prior application.
5. The Dominican Republic adopts the Nice classification and accepts multiple types of applications, with only commodity and service trademarks being protected by law; As for colored trademarks, they can be protected, but the color of a product or its packaging alone cannot be registered;
The Dominican Republic is a party to international intellectual property treaties such as the WIPO Convention, Geneva Convention, TRIPS Agreement, and Paris Convention, and has not yet joined the Madrid Agreement or Madrid Protocol. Therefore, trademark registration in the Dominican Republic can only be processed through a "single country registration" method.
The validity period is 10 years from the date of registration; Renewal can be processed within 6 months before the expiration date, with a grace period of 6 months (with additional fees) and a validity period of 10 years.
If a trademark has not been used for three consecutive years, an application for revocation can be filed.
1. Applicant's name and address
2. Goods or services;
3. Trademark design
4. Power of Attorney
5. If priority rights need to be submitted, priority proof documents must be provided;
Application review announcement approval issuance.
Submit application documents to the Dominican Trademark Office;
The examiner will conduct a formal and substantive examination of the application to confirm whether the application documents are complete and whether the applied trademark meets the basic registration requirements; If the review fails, a rejection notice will be issued and a response will be required within the specified time;
Once the review is approved, an announcement will be arranged, and a 45 day objection period will be set from the date of announcement;
If there are no objections or objections are not established during the announcement period, the trademark will be approved for registration and a trademark registration certificate will be issued to the applicant.
If the whole process goes smoothly, it will only take 3-4 months to complete.
