Trademark registration in Hong Kong
We will read the registry records first, settle every written form of your name, lodge the application with a working address for service, and hold the renewal window that opens only six months before expiry.
Filing, one class
Подача, один класс
HK$2,000
2 000 HKD
Each further class
Следующий класс
HK$1,000
1 000 HKD
Opposition
Оппозиция
3 months, published
3 месяца с публикации
Renewal opens
Окно продления
6 months before expiry
полгода до истечения
When you need a Hong Kong trademark registration
You are launching into Asia from here
A Hong Kong registration stops copies in Hong Kong. Across the boundary in the mainland it does nothing, and that is where the goods are usually made.
The brand is read in two scripts
Customers say one thing and packaging shows another. In this register a Chinese version of the name counts as a different mark, and only what was filed is covered.
Nobody here reads your post
The registry writes to an address in Hong Kong and nowhere else. Without one that works, an opinion with a deadline on it simply goes unanswered.
An opinion arrived from the examiner
The registry searches earlier marks itself and says in writing what stands in the way. The reply you send is what decides the application.
The tenth year is close
The renewal request cannot be lodged early: the window opens six months before expiry, and a request sent before it is refused outright.
What you get
- The register read before anything is lodged
- An address for service that actually works
- The application in your company’s own name
- Every written opinion answered in time
- The certificate and the renewal window
What is required for a Hong Kong trade mark
The register is kept by the Trade Marks Registry of the Intellectual Property Department under the Trade Marks Ordinance. One feature shapes everything else: there is no international door into Hong Kong, so a filing with this registry is the only way in.
Choosing which offices a brand goes to belongs to our wider filing service. Everything else a company meets here is on the Hong Kong page.
No international route, and what follows from it
An international registration that names China does not reach Hong Kong or Macao. Legislation to change that has passed but has not been brought into operation, so marks held elsewhere still need a filing here.
A single international application covering a dozen markets leaves this one out, and the gap usually becomes visible only when somebody local files the same name first.
What the registry charges
| What is filed | Amount |
|---|---|
| Application, first class | HK$2,000 |
| Application, each further class | HK$1,000 |
| Preliminary advice on registrability | HK$400, plus HK$200 a class |
| Search of the records | HK$400 |
| Opposing a published mark | HK$800 |
| Renewal | HK$2,670, plus HK$1,340 a class |
| Renewal after expiry | HK$500 on top |
| Restoration and renewal | HK$4,000 |
Opposing somebody else’s mark costs eight hundred dollars here — low enough that a crowded search result should change the filing plan rather than decorate it.
Three windows that decide the timetable
Two months on deficiencies
Anything missing from the form is notified, and the correction is due within two months. Some corrections move the filing date, which is the date the whole registration will later count from.
Six months on an objection
Where the examiner objects, the applicant has six months to meet the requirements, and a further three months can be granted. A second opinion afterwards leaves three months to satisfy it or to call for a hearing.
Three months on opposition
Once accepted, the mark appears in the official journal, and anyone may oppose within three months of that day. Losing an opposition can carry the other side’s costs.
What goes into the form
- The owner named as the company records name it, with a person who answers.
- A representation of the sign capable of being shown graphically.
- Goods and services written around what you sell, in the right classes.
- An address for service in Hong Kong, meeting the registry’s own rules.
- A decision on every written form: Latin, traditional Chinese, simplified, a short form.
Watching who else starts using the name afterwards is brand protection. How the courts and registries here work in general is in our note on the Hong Kong legal system.
Ten years, counted backwards from the register
Protection runs ten years and the registration takes effect from the filing date, so the clock starts before the certificate exists. Renewal is accepted only inside the last six months of the term.
Miss it and six months remain past the expiry date, with a late charge on top. Miss those too and the mark comes off the register; restoration together with renewal is then possible for six months from removal, and that limit cannot be extended.
Sources: amounts and periods are published by the Intellectual Property Department and in its application process; the term and renewal windows are in its renewal and restoration manual; that a registration naming China excludes Hong Kong is stated by the World Intellectual Property Organization.
Stages of work
Reading the records before a fee is paid.
We will search the registry’s records for identical and similar signs in your classes and the ones beside them, and read the result against the goods you really put the name on.
Settling every written form of the name.
Latin letters, traditional characters, a simplified version, a short form customers already use — each is a separate sign. We will decide which of them are filed and which are left alone, before the packaging is printed.
Putting an address for service in place.
The registry corresponds with a Hong Kong address and with nothing else. That has to exist and be monitored before the application goes in, because every later deadline arrives through it.
Filing, and the first two months.
We will lodge the application with the official amount for the classes you need. Anything the registry finds missing has to be corrected within two months, and we will keep the correction away from the filing date.
The examiner’s search and written opinion.
The registry searches earlier marks itself and either accepts the mark or sets out its grounds. We will answer inside the six months allowed, and spell out what cutting the goods back would cost you.
Publication, and the three months after it.
The mark appears in the official journal, and the three months start running the day it does. We will diary the end of them and file a counter-statement if anything lands inside.
The certificate, and the window that opens late.
Registration dates back to the filing date, so we will hand you the expiry calculated from it, the six months in which renewal can be lodged, and the two later windows behind it.
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