Take care of the trademark

For a registered trademark to have any value, you must take good care of it and work actively to increase its value.

As a trademark owner, you have to:

  • notify us if there are any changes to the registration.
  • keep an eye on your competitors, and be active if someone infringes your rights.
  • look for opportunities for commercial gain, such as licensing or collaboration agreements.
  • remember to renew the right every 10 years.

Use the trademark

To retain the exclusive right, you should use your trademark within five years of registration. This is called duty of use.

If you do not use the trademark within the deadline, others may request to revoke the trademark registration.

Report changes to the registration

It is important that you let us know if there have been any changes since registration, for example a change of owner, representative, address or other.

Have you taken over ownership of a trademark, entered into an agreement license or taken a lien on a trademark right? Then you should register this in our register.

Renew your right

A trademark registration is valid for ten years, but you can renew the registration as many times as you like.

In order to retain the right to the trademark, you must therefore renew the registration every 10 years. If you do not pay the required fees by the deadline, your registration will cease. 

We will send a notification about this to you or your representative approx. two months before the payment deadline.

Protect your trademark in other countries

A trademark only has protection in the country in which it is registered. If you are going to produce or sell your goods or services in several countries, you must apply for trademark registration in these countries as well. 

If you have just applied for a trademark in Norway, it may be a good idea to apply for protection in other countries before six months have passed from the application date. You can then get protection from the date the trademark application was submitted in Norway. This is called priority.

Be active and protect your exclusive rights

Once you have registered the trademark, applications for similar trademarks will be stopped by the Norwegian Industrial Property Office.

However, it is still important that you yourself ensure that others do not copy or imitate your brand.

It's smart to monitor the market to check what your competitors are doing and make sure no one is taking advantage of your trademark.
 

Keep an eye on your competitors

It can be smart to follow what your competitors are doing in the market.

In our register you will find all trademarks registered in Norway.

Within the register, you can set up notifications, so that you are notified if, for example, there are changes to an application or registration, or if a competitor registers new trademarks.

What can you do if you are copied?

Have you discovered that others are using a trademark similar to yours for the same or similar goods or services? This may be a violation of your rights.

Contact the other party 

You can contact the other party and explain your point of view. It is advisable to make contact in writing which you can later document. You should attach a copy of your registration and ask the other party to stop using the trademark. In many cases, you can succeed in stopping the use when you can document that you have exclusive rights to the trademark.

Lawsuits

If the other party does not agree with you or does not take your rights into account, you can go to court. Then you should contact a lawyer who specializes in intellectual property rights. A documented right in the form of a trademark registration will be of great importance in any legal proceedings.

Frequently asked questions about taking care of the trademark

Yes. You must monitor your trademark yourself.

Through our trademark register, you can set up alerts on a case, and you can save searches that keep up with what competitors are doing.

How to set up notifications?

1. Start with a search in the search service
2. From the hit list, you have the option to set up an alert by clicking "Save Search" (this will set up an alert for the entire search) or check one or more specific cases and click "Follow Case".

Yes, you can make some changes to your trademark, as long as it doesn't affect the overall impression.

Read more about changing the brand

Yes. A trademark registration is valid for 10 years. After that, you must renew it.

Read more about payment and trademark renewal

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