• if legal protection is required only in the territory of the Republic of Belarus, it is sufficient to obtain a national certificate - such an application should be filed in the Belarusian language with the NCIP (National Center of Intellectual Property);
• if company activities are related to the markets of several countries, it is reasonable to obtain a certificate under the Madrid system, in this case the application may be filed through the patent office of the country of the applicant's registration, and Belarus should be included in the list of countries;
• in the process of registration at the national level it is possible to change the status of the application - if the applicant applies to the NCIP to transfer the application to the international status, the protection will arise in the selected countries when completing the registration.

This flexible registration regime allows commercial entities to independently determine where and how to secure trademark rights.

For registration actions it is necessary to submit application documentation to the NCIS. The list of mandatory forms and forms will include the application, the designation and its description, the register of product classes according to the Nice Classification. When using the classifier of the Nice Classification, it must be taken into account that legal protection will only be granted to goods whose classes and categories are indicated in the application. For other types of products, a similar trademark can be used or registered by another entity.

When the application is submitted to the NCIP, the national priority regime will arise. If an application with international status is considered, conventional priority is granted. This regime gives priority for registration if the examiners determine the existence of two or more applications with identical signs. The advantage is determined by the earlier date of receipt of the documents.

Tariffs and duties

Registration of trademarks through the NCIS is a paid service, and the rates of fees are approved by the Tax Code of the Republic of Belarus. In order to avoid regular amendments to the Tax Code of the Republic of Belarus, the duty rates are calculated in basic units. Accordingly, one must pay fees in the following amounts for registration activities:

• 10 basic units are paid for filing the application, as well as 5 basic units for each additional class of the ICU over 1;
• for substantive examination, a fee of 28 basic units is paid;
• for the issuance of the certificate and registration in the registers, a fee of 19 basic units shall be paid;
• if the national application changes status to international, the fees must be paid in Swiss francs.

A fee of 55 basic units must also be paid for the extension of the protection regime. Additional costs will be required if a collective mark is being registered, or if the applicant applies for repeated examinations.