As a leading law firm on the registration of intellectual property rights domestically, Robinson Bertram focuses mainly on the registration of trademarks and provides broad services to clients pertaining to this area of intellectual property law.
Trademark registration is governed by the Trademarks Act of 1981[1] (“The Act”) and our firm provides a wide range of services in line with what the Act stipulates and permits.
The services we provide include, but not limited to, application for registration of a trade mark; classification of registration; prohibition of registration; registration of parts and series of trademarks; term of registration and renewal; opposition; infringement; right to continue use as well as assignments and transmissions.
The registration process takes approximately three months, and consists of the following steps:
- Filing of Application– after a period of four weeks then the process proceeds to step (ii):
- Filing receipt– upon receipt of a filing receipt then after a period of four to eight weeks the process proceeds to step (iii);
- Notice of Acceptance or objection– after a period of two weeks the process then proceeds to step (iv);
- Publication in the trademarks gazette– after a period of three months then the process proceeds to step (v);
- Application for registration certificate.
The government office responsible for the registration of intellectual property rights is the Intellectual property office under the Ministry of Commerce industry and Trade and Mlibatisi, as a registered trademark agent in Eswatini, liaises with this office on a regular basis on the registration of intellectual property rights.
The Trademarks Act of 1981.
For further information and updates please contact Mlibatisi Kunene (mlibatisi@robinsonbertram.law.sz) from Robinson Bertram, the LEX Africa member for Eswatini.
