Trademark registration in Kazakhstan

Since Kazakhstan signed the Customs Union agreement with Russia, favorable conditions have been created for exports to this country. For example, there is no requirement to submit a customs declaration. This makes Kazakhstan attractive for Russian entrepreneurs. In order to promote their products on the Kazakh market, it is necessary to make them recognizable, to individualize them with a memorable brand. In order to protect the trademark of the products you are going to offer to consumers from copies and fakes, it is necessary to register it.

Registration of a trademark in Kazakhstan can be done in three ways:

• Contacting local patent attorneys in Kazakhstan.
• Under the Madrid Protocol, as Kazakhstan is a party to the Madrid Agreement. This must include a filed application for brand registration in Russia.

The third option is to apply to the National Institute of Intellectual Property of the Republic of Kazakhstan - Kazpatent (RGKP NIIS). The intergovernmental agreement mutually simplifies the procedure for registration of legal protection of Russian trademarks in Kazakhstan and vice versa.

Stages of trademark registration in Kazakhstan

• Preliminary expertise of the brand. Verified by:

• compliance of the submitted documents with the registration requirements;
• checking the payment of fees and registration fees;
• Checking and adjusting the correspondence of the list of activities according to the Nice Classification

As a result of the preliminary examination, a notice of its result - acceptance of the application - is sent to the applicant. This stage is performed within a period of 2 months from the date of submission of the application.

• Full examination of the brand. During this period it is checked:

• absence of absolute barriers to registration - grounds for refusal - such as state symbols, common terms;
• search for identical and similar trademarks that can serve as an obstacle to the registration of your trademark;
• when such signs are found, the degree of similarity and their homogeneity in terms of classes of the Nice Classification is checked.

This stage is the longest, lasting 12 months from the date of application.

• Decision on brand registration. Within one month after the completion of the full examination, if the outcome is favorable, the decision on registration is made. The trademark is officially introduced into the State Register.
• Certificate issuance. A certificate of registration of trademark is executed in the national and Russian languages and is sent to the applicant in the form of registered letter. The owner receives the right to enter the brand mark "R", which means that the brand is registered.

A curious fact from the field of intellectual property protection: recently an informal, but used term "trademark trolling" has emerged. The registration of a brand or the purchase for a small sum of money of already existing and unused trademark in order to influence bona fide businessmen with subsequent material gain. For example, an invalid trademark similar to yours, but registered earlier, is bought to challenge the priority of the mark. In order to avoid such a situation, it is preferable to entrust the verification of the brand intended for registration to specialists.

Tariffs and Fees for Trademark Registration in Kazakhstan

1. For filing an application. This includes a formal preliminary examination in the amount of 16599,52 tenge, additionally 7 193,76 tenge for each class of the International Classification of Goods (MKTU) over 3;
2. For the full expertise up to three classes of the International Classification of Goods: 44000,32 tenge.
3. For expertise over three classes - 9,800 tenge.
4. For registration of a trademark and issuance of a certificate - 36544, 48 tenge.

The services we provide in Russia and Abroad:

• preparation of application materials;
• payment of state fees, necessary payments (we provide samples of payment orders, and in some cases we pay the fees ourselves);
• interaction with the registering authority;
• maintenance of office work, correspondence;
• obtaining a certificate.