How to Trademark a Name and Logo in Canada 2020

The Real Cost to Trademark a Name in Canada: Time

The trademarking process in Canada now takes a crazy long time. At this point, it usually takes more than two years. It used to be that they would examine your trademark application within six months after filing. 

Then it became eight, then nine, then 11 now it takes over a year before they even look at applications for the first time.  Unfortunately, most applications just sit there. I know that’s super frustrating, but that's what it is. 

Luckily, now you can adjust your expectations. Now expect your application will take forever to go through and start sooner rather than later. Okay?

The process itself is very much like trademark registration in most countries. 

First, you should conduct a search to see if your brand is trademarkable. 

Now, in theory, it's optional. Canadian intellectual property office is not going to require you to produce any evidence that you have done your homework, or that you have done your searches. 

But why would you start a two-year process without having a clue as to whether your trademark is even registrable? It doesn't make any sense, and I don't mean just a knockout search when you're searching for identical trademarks only. 

I mean, do a proper comprehensive search to make sure you're not wasting your time and money. That will make your life easier, and save you time and money. 

Breaking it Down: What Can Registering a Trademark in Canada Cost?

Then you would file your trademark. The government fees are now 330 Canadian dollars for the first class of goods and services in which you follow your trademark plus 100 Canadian dollars for each additional class. 

For example, if you file your trademark in four classes, you will pay 630 Canadian dollars as filing fees. 300 plus three times 100 and yes, Canada has finally adopted the Nice classification. 

So all applications need to have goods and services grouped according to the official classes. (By the way, we've released several videos on classes on our work and a few more. So if you want to know more about how trademark classes work, make sure you subscribe and check out our other videos.) 

They’ll describe steps you can apply when figuring out the cost to trademark a name in any number of countries.

Now, most trademark applications are filed online through CIPO’s website. After that, once the examiner finally reviews your application for the first time, they will either mail you a notice of approval or office action. And I mean mail by paper. The old-fashioned way. 

We receive dozens and dozens of envelopes every week, and then we scan and shred them. You would think that they'd have figured out a way to post these documents online by now, but hey, uh, they're gonna tell you how much they care about saving the environment by going paperless and text the crap out of you instead. 

Then, they're gonna send you tens of thousands of letters that could have easily been sent by email.

That’s just how it’s been for a while now. The sooner you know that, the easier it is to come to terms with.

But, uh, I digress. 

If you receive the notice of approval, you'll have a chance to review it to make sure all details are correct before your application gets published in the trademarks journal for opposition purposes. 

If you receive an office action, you will have six months to respond to it by fax or by mail, not by email, not through an online form, by fax or by regular mail. 

Now the next time you will hear from the examiner will be many, many months later, and then you have another six months to respond and so on.

Register a Trademark in Canada: What comes next?

Assuming the application eventually gets published, anyone will have two months to oppose your trademark application or request a three-month extension of time to do so.

If your application is opposed, then there's a whole lot of procedural back and forth that you would need to go through, including in certain cases, oral hearings, and if you win the opposition or if nobody opposes your application within this period, your trademark application will be allowed and registered. Yay!

The funny thing here is that while CIPO sends all of their notices and office actions by regular mail, the only document you would actually want to receive as an original would be the trademark registration certificate. 

But guess what? It's the only document they send you as a PDF. Go figure. 

Now, I thought it was kind of dumb. So what we do here at the trademark factory is we print these PDFs out. We put them in a nice custom frame, and we mail them to our clients. 

I mean, after all, this is the moment they've been waiting for, for two freaking years. And we want them to have something tangible to celebrate over, not some PDF file.

Trademark Renewal And the Cost to Trademark a Logo

Once your trademark registers in Canada, you will need to renew it in 10 years and then every 10 years after that. So that's how you trademark your brand name and logo in Canada. I hope this gives you a pretty good idea of the process and just so you know, we can help you with the entire process. 

From start to finish for a single all-inclusive flat fee, risk-free, guaranteed. That’s not something every trademark company can offer when quoting you the cost to trademark a logo.

Now, personally, I'm a registered Canadian trademark agent. 

Our all-inclusive flat fee is not a bait-and-switch offer to get our foot in the door and then milk you as an ATM as the trademarking process unfolds. It covers everything from filing to registration, except for opposition, by the way, yes, we do have a package that covers oppositions as well. 

And yes, if you're serious about your brand and your business, you will find our fee very much manageable and affordable. Just don't expect some silly offers where they say, you can get your brand trademarked for a couple of hundred bucks. 

Now, if we fail at getting your trademark registered in Canada, you will get a full refund, no matter how much time we will have spent working on your trademark application. When registering a trademark in Canada, cost shouldn’t be the prohibitive factor.

If you want to learn more about trademarks, make sure to subscribe to my channel. I post a new video about trademarks every day!

If you want to get the trademarking process started to protect your brand in Canada, go to trademarkfactory.com or trademarkfactory.ca if you prefer the Canadian domain names and book your free call with one of our strategy advisors, the call is free. The advice is priceless.