If you want to distinguish your goods, services or both from those of another company, you may need a trademark or trade name. Find out what they are, what their registration procedure is and what it involves.
Information on the deadlines for filing applications for transformation of European Union trademarks into Spanish national trademarks. See more
If you have a new device, product or procedure that solves a technical problem or has a practical advantage, there are different ways to protect it in Spain and other countries. Find out how.
Does your innovation lie in the aesthetics, ornamentation or appearance of your product? Protect it through industrial design. Find out what rights registration confers and how to proceed.
Geographical indications protect the name of a product that has a specific geographical origin and owes its qualities, characteristics or reputation to its particular origin. Find out what they are, how the registration process works and what benefits they provide.
Patents published worldwide are a valuable source of scientific, technical and commercial information.
El Bono 3 del Fondo para PYMEs 2025, que cubre la elaboración de Informes Tecnológicos de Patentes (ITP) y Búsquedas Retrospectivas se cerrará el lunes 10 de febrero de 2025 al cierre de la jornada laboral. Próximamente se informará sobre su reapertura. Puede consultar más información aquí.
If you are an entrepreneur or a company and you want to boost and improve the profitability of your business by adequately protecting the intangible assets of your organisation, in this space you will find what you need.
Respondemos todas aquellas dudas referentes a los diferentes procesos implicados en la propiedad industrial.
Trademarks and trade names are distinctive signs that are protected through titles awarded by the state. These grant the title holder exclusive right to their use in economic operations and to prevent others from using protected distinctive signs or other identical or similar signs applied to identical or similar products or services in Spain.
Trademarks are signs allowing business people to distinguish their products or services from the products or services of competitors.
Trade names are signs or denominations identifying a company in trade activities and serve to identify it, separate it and distinguish it from other companies undertaking identical or similar activities.
The corporate name is the name that identifies a legal entity in mercantile operations as the subject in legal relations and is therefore subject to rights and obligations.
The trade name does not have to be the same as the corporate name and the two may therefore be different. A natural person or legal entity can have various trade names for identifying business activities which belong to different economic activity sectors.
Therefore, a trouser manufacturer could register the name he uses for his manufacturing business activities as his trade name, which serves to distinguish the company from other business people. The corporate name is the name which must be used, for example, to sign contracts and register employees for the social security. The sign or name with which the trousers are commercialised will be the trademark of the product. All of these can be, at the business owner's choice, the same or different as required.
The corporate name is the equivalent of the "civil name" of a private individual and the trade name is the "artistic name" that the person may use to present to clients in the marketplace.
Trademarks and trade names are registered with the Spanish Patent and Trademark Office; corporate names are registered in the Central Mercantile Register.
Dependiendo del tipo de signo anterior, podemos definir el momento desde el que se computa ese plazo de cinco años. El momento para iniciar el cómputo de los cinco años dependerá de la modalidad de signo oponente ante la que nos encontremos. Podemos concretar estas fechas:
No deberán probar el uso aquellas marcas o nombres comerciales oponentes que no lleven más de cinco años registrados en la fecha de presentación o prioridad de la solicitud impugnada.
Si el solicitante pidiese prueba de uso en este caso, su petición sería rechazada por improcedente y se seguirá con la tramitación de fondo del procedimiento de oposición.
Los oponentes solamente estarán obligados a probar el uso de aquellos signos anteriores que lleven registrados más de cinco años, puesto que la obligación de usar una marca o nombre comercial no es exigible inmediatamente después de su registro, sino que el titular tiene un “periodo de gracia” de cinco años, como se explica a continuación.
BOPI
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