A name you can actually defend, not just one you are using
Clearance search before anything is filed, classes chosen for what you will sell rather than what you sell today, and the route picked on reach and cost. In Portugal through the INPI, or across all twenty-seven member states through the EUIPO.
Your company name is not a trademark
This is the most expensive misunderstanding we deal with, and it costs people a rebrand rather than a fee.
- An exclusive right to the sign for the goods and services you claimed
- Grounds to oppose a later application for a confusingly similar mark
- Grounds to stop a competitor using it, and to act against counterfeits
- An asset you can license, sell, pledge or put into a group structure
- Something a serious buyer or investor will ask to see in diligence
- A company name at the commercial registry gives you a firm name, not a brand right
- A domain gives you an address, and nothing about who may use the word
- A social handle gives you a username, revocable by the platform
- Years of use gives you an argument, which is not the same as a right
- None of them stops a third party registering your name as a trademark
The sequence that hurts goes like this: incorporate, buy the domain, print the packaging, launch, and then receive a letter from somebody who registered the mark two years earlier in the class you are selling in. At that point your options are to negotiate, to rebrand, or to litigate — and all three cost more than the search you did not run.
Portugal only, or all twenty-seven
Per country, the EU mark is extraordinary value. It is also all-or-nothing: an earlier right in any single member state can block the whole application. That trade-off is the decision, and it should be made on where you will sell rather than on the price difference.
There is a third route worth knowing about. Through the Madrid system you can use a Portuguese or EU registration as the base for an international registration and designate further countries — the United Kingdom, Switzerland, the United States, Brazil and many others — from a single application. It is rarely the first step, and frequently the right second one once the European position is secure.
Protection stops at the edge of what you claimed
Marks are registered for specified goods and services under the Nice Classification, and this is where most self-filed applications go wrong in a way that only becomes visible years later.
Register for software and not for the related services, and a competitor can take the same name in the adjacent class. They will not be infringing: you did not claim it. This is the most common defect we find in marks filed without advice.
Once in official fees for classes you do not need, and again in exposure: a registration covering goods you never sell is vulnerable to challenge for non-use in those categories after five years.
We choose classes against what the business will plausibly be selling in three years, including the obvious adjacent move. Not everything you might ever do, and not only what is on the invoice this month.
Within a class, the list of goods and services is drafted. A vague specification is easier to attack and harder to enforce, and a copied one frequently claims things you have no intention of doing.
Search, file, publish, and the three months that follow
Identical and confusingly similar earlier marks, in your classes, in the registers that matter for the route you are taking. You get a written view: clear, risky with reasons, or not worth filing. We have told clients not to file and we will tell you.
Classes selected on the three-year horizon and the goods and services written rather than copied. This is the part that determines what the right is actually worth later.
Submitted online with the official fee paid at cost. The filing date is what fixes your priority, which is why we do not sit on a decision once the search is clear.
The office examines on absolute grounds and publishes the application. Publication starts the clock for anyone who wants to object.
Three months for an EU trade mark, with an equivalent stage on the Portuguese national route. Most applications pass unopposed. Where an opposition arrives, we tell you immediately what it is worth fighting and what it is not.
Registered for ten years from the filing date. We diarise the renewal and, on request, monitor later applications so you hear about a conflicting filing while opposing it is still cheap.
Use it, or lose it
A registered mark is not a permanent possession. It is a right conditional on doing something with it.
A mark that has not been put to genuine use in connection with the goods and services it was registered for, for a continuous period of five years, becomes vulnerable to revocation on the application of anyone who wants it. Registering a name and sitting on it is not a safe parking position.
Applies to both the Portuguese national mark and the EU trade mark.Dated invoices, packaging, screenshots of the mark in use on the goods claimed, advertising with dates. Assembling five years of evidence retrospectively, under a revocation action, is considerably harder than keeping a folder.
Part of owning the right rather than an optional extra.Protection runs ten years from the filing date and renews in ten-year periods. Nobody is obliged to chase you. A lapsed mark can sometimes be restored within a grace period and sometimes cannot, and the name is then available to whoever was waiting.
We diarise renewals for marks we file and for marks we take over.Our fee, and the office’s
Official fees are set by the INPI and the EUIPO and passed through at cost. Our fee covers the search, the class strategy, the drafting and the filing — and it is payable whether the answer is to file or not to file.
- Identical and similar earlier marks
- In your classes and your territory
- Written view: clear, risky, or do not file
- Credited against the filing fee if you proceed
- Filing
- Monitoring
- Clearance search included
- Class strategy on a three-year horizon
- Specification drafted, not copied
- Filing with the INPI or the EUIPO
- Office correspondence handled to registration
- Renewal diarised
- Multi-class and multi-territory filings
- Madrid international registrations
- Oppositions, ours or against us
- Assignments into a group structure
- Watching service on your classes
- Taking over an existing portfolio
Official fees are those published by the offices and are added at cost: €148.71 online for a Portuguese mark in one class, €850 for an EU trade mark in one class. Additional classes and any opposition proceedings are quoted separately. If the search says the name is not worth filing, you pay for the search and nothing else.
Where the right comes from
- Código da Propriedade Industrial, approved by Decreto-Lei n.º 110/2018 — the Portuguese industrial property code, governing national trademarks, their registration, duration, revocation for non-use and enforcement.
- Regulation (EU) 2017/1001 on the European Union trade mark — the unitary EU right, administered by the EUIPO, covering all member states from a single application.
- The Nice Agreement and its classification of goods and services — the class system both offices apply.
- The Madrid Protocol, administered by WIPO — international registration designating further countries from a national or EU base.
- INPI fee schedule, set by deliberation of the INPI board and published in the Diário da República — the source of the Portuguese official fees quoted here.
Position at October 2026. Official fees are those in force when this page was written; the INPI table is revised periodically and the figure is confirmed at filing. Nothing here is advice on the registrability of your particular sign, which is what the clearance search is for.
Questions we answer every week
Is my company name already a trademark?
No, and this is the most expensive misunderstanding in this area. Registering a company at the commercial registry gives you the right to trade under that firm name. It does not stop another business using a similar sign on their products, and it does not stop someone else registering that very name as a trademark and then objecting to your use of it. Company name, domain name and trademark are three separate rights with three separate registers.
Should I file in Portugal or across the whole EU?
It depends on where you will actually sell and on what you can afford to defend. A national Portuguese mark through the INPI protects you in Portugal only, costs €148.71 online for one class and is the right answer for a local business. An EU trade mark through the EUIPO covers all twenty-seven member states from €850, which is extraordinary value per country but is also all-or-nothing: an earlier right in any one member state can block it everywhere.
What does the clearance search actually do?
It looks for earlier marks that are identical or confusingly similar in your classes, in the registers that matter for your route. It is the difference between discovering a conflict for the price of a search and discovering it through an opposition after you have filed, paid, printed packaging and launched. We will tell you plainly when a name is not worth filing, and we would rather lose that fee than take it.
How long does registration take and how long does it last?
An unopposed EU trade mark is typically registered within a few months of filing, with a three-month opposition window running after publication. Protection lasts ten years from the filing date and is renewable indefinitely in ten-year periods. The Portuguese national route follows the same shape with its own publication and opposition stage.
What are classes and why do they matter so much?
Trademarks are registered for specified goods and services under the Nice Classification, and your protection stops at the edge of what you claimed. Claiming too narrowly leaves the door open for a competitor in an adjacent category; claiming too broadly costs money and exposes you to challenge for non-use. We choose classes against what you will sell in the next three years, not only what you sell this month.
Can I lose a trademark I have already registered?
Yes. A mark that has not been put to genuine use for five continuous years becomes vulnerable to revocation on application by anyone who wants it. Registering and then not using the mark on the goods you claimed is not a safe parking position, and keeping evidence of use is part of owning the right rather than an optional extra.
Can you register a trademark for a company that does not exist yet?
You can file in the name of an individual and assign it to the company later, and sometimes that is the right move when a launch date is fixed and the incorporation is not finished. The assignment is a registered act with its own small cost. If the company will exist within weeks, it is usually cleaner to wait and file in its name.
Send us the name. You get a straight answer about whether it is worth filing
The sign, what you sell, and where you sell it. We run the clearance search and come back with one of three answers: clear to file, risky for these specific reasons, or do not file this name. We have given the third answer plenty of times and we would rather give it than take a fee for an application that was never going to hold.