In general, the procedures and costs involved in obtaining a trademark registration with us are as follows:

QUICK ASSESSMENT

Included in our fee for filing a trademark application is a quick, 15-minute search (in Canada only) and assessment (a “Quick Assessment”).  If after the Quick Assessment, we find any trademarks or spot any legal issues that may pose concern for the registration of your trademark, we will let you know.  Please note however, that the Quick Assessment includes only a quick search – it will not pick up all relevant trademarks and is not conclusive of the availability or registrability of your trademark.  It also does not cover more extensive advice regarding your trademark’s availability, licensing or your trademark protection strategy.

FILING THE APPLICATION

After obtaining the required information from you, we will file the application and provide you with a filing receipt.  Our fees for filing an application are $775, plus GST.  This fee includes our time for reviewing the use of your trademark and your goods and services, conducting the quick search, determining the appropriate classes of goods and services, preparing and filing the application, reporting the same and reporting correspondence received from the Trademarks Office.

These fees do not include the Canadian Intellectual Property Office (CIPO) filing fees, which will depend on the number of goods and services with which you use your trademark.  Currently, the CIPO filing fees are $478.15 for the first class of goods and services, plus $145.12 for each additional class.  

If you wish to apply to register more than one mark for the same goods and services, for each additional application, we offer a reduced fee of $575 (which includes our time, but excludes the government filing fees and GST). 

PROSECUTION

In a number of months, the Trademarks Office will issue an Examiner’s Report stating its objections to the application.  After forwarding the Examiner’s Report, and obtaining your instructions, we would file a response to the Examiner’s Report.

The cost of responding to an Examiner’s Report varies depending on the nature of the response required.  For example, simple amendments to the list of goods and services generally cost in the area of $250 to $500 whereas a response to a substantive objection generally costs between $800 and $1200.  Note that there may be more than one Examiner’s Report for each application, each requiring a response and incurring the above-mentioned costs.  Unfortunately, it is currently taking the Trademarks Office 13 to 18 months to issue the first Examiner’s Report. 

APPROVAL FOR ADVERTISEMENT 

If the Examiner’s objections are successfully overcome, the application will be advertised in the Trademarks Journal.  For two months following the date of advertisement, other parties will be able to oppose the application. Other parties can oppose an application on a number of grounds, including that the party has used the trademark prior to the applicant, and that the trademark is confusing with the party’s registered trademark. In the unlikely event that your application is opposed, note that the costs for successfully overcoming an opposition can be substantial and are not included in any of the above-noted cost estimates.

ALLOWANCE & REGISTRATION

Once the trademark has passed through the advertisement stage without opposition, a Notice of Allowance is issued. 

The approximate cost of seeing one non-problematic application (no oppositions are filed and no extensions of time are required for responding to an Examiner’s Report) through to registration is approximately $1500 to $3600 (including the government filing fees).

Note that, due to delays with at the Trademarks Office, it is currently taking at least two years for an application to proceed to registration; however, once a trademark is registered, the owner’s rights date back to the date of application.

Please click and fill out our Trademark Application Intake Form and we can file an application to register your trademark!