Lawyer Monthly Magazine -December 2019 Edition

Eleventh Edition – Version 2019) contains 34 classes for goods and 11 classes for services. A trademark registration is valid for 10 years from the trademark registration date and is renewable for successive ten-year periods. It is not legally permissible to file multi-class trademark applications, as a result of which a separate trademark application is to be filed for each class under which protection is being sought. Let us consider a trademark application with a single priority claim that is to be filed electronically under four classes in Brazil. We shall further consider that the goods, which are selected from the pre-approved Nice Classification database, are to be described on a single page, which requires translation. For instance, the applicant could be a beverages company wishing to register under Class 29 (Milk), Class 30 (Coffee and Tea), Class 31 (Beverages for Animals), and Class 32 (Non- Alcoholic Beverages and Fruit Beverages). The estimated costs of trademark protection under four classes in Brazil, from filing through registration, add up to approximately US $4,300 (Table 1). The costs are based on the assumption that the applications get registered without any objections from the Brazilian Patent and Trademark Office, with no oppositions being filed after publication. As shown in Table 1, the costs are spread across the two different stages of the trademark process: Filing and Registration. Trademark Filing Fees, Trademark Registration Fees, and ‘Go Green’ Incentives The trademark filing and registration costs are inclusive of the discount offered by the Brazilian Patent and Trademark Office for ‘Going Green’ (i.e., filing the trademark application electronically). The official trademark fees for filing a trademark application electronically in a single class in Brazil, with the specification of goods being selected from the pre-approved Nice Classification database, is BRL 355 (approximately US $93), while that for non-electronic filing is BRL 530 (approximately US $139). Further, the trademark filing costs are also inclusive of the costs of translating the description of goods into Portuguese, the official fee for claiming a priority, and the attorney charges for handling the priority claim. The official fee for registering a trademark application in a single class is BRL 745 (approximately US $195). Trademark Renewal Fees in Brazil As stated above, a trademark registration in Brazil is valid for 10 years from the trademark registration date and is renewable for successive ten- year periods. The official fee for renewing a trademark registration in a single class is BRL 1,065 (approximately US $280). Companies across the world are fast recognising the need for implementing a well thought out and judicious international trademark filing strategy. In such a scenario, it is imperative that due deliberation is given for the inclusion of vibrant economies with high potential for growth, such as Brazil, in the formulation of a global trademark filing strategy. Estimating costs at a granular level can facilitate strategic decision-making and budget forecasting, in addition to minimizing the variance between the budgeted spend and the actual spend. LM 46 WWW.LAWYER-MONTHLY.COM | DEC 2019 Special Feature By Anthony De Andrade, CEO Quantify IP, Venkatesh Viswanath and Bandita Panda Table 1: Estimated Costs of Trademark Protection in Brazil Stage Estimated Costs (USD) Filing 2,887 Registration 1,499 Total 4,386 “Companies across the world are fast recognising the need for implementing a well thought out and judicious international trademark filing strategy.”