Two new laws recently entered into force in Turkmenistan – one on June 19, 2019 and one on June 20, 2019, titled “Trademark Law”  and “On Appellations of Origin of Goods”. The previous law, “On Trademarks, Service Marks and Appellations of Origin of Goods of October 23, 2008 became invalid on June 19, 2019.

With regards to the provisions of “Trademark law” the following should be noted.

Trademark Validity: On applications filed before November 5, 2008, the calculation of the 10-year term of validity of the trademark is made from the date of registration of the trademark, and on applications filed after the above-mentioned date – from the filing date of the application.

Grounds for refusal to register a trademark: For substantive reasons, it is not allowed to register as a trademark signs that are identical or similar to the grade of confusion with names included in the list of International Nonproprietary Names for Pharmaceutical Substances and Active Pharmaceutical Ingredients by the World Health Organization.

Requirement to the list of goods / services: In case of specifying in the list of goods the headings of the Nice Classification and other general terms, the scope of protection of a trademark includes only those goods and (or) services that are clearly covered by the literal meaning of indication or term.

Publication of trademark application: The application is published in the bulletin of Turkmenpatent after three months from the filing date. After the application is published, any interested party may file an objection to the possible registration of the trademark before the registration date of the published trademark.

Article 16 (2): Accelerated procedure of examination for the trademark application: There is an accelerated procedure for the substantive examination before 6 months form the application filing date. In case of receipt of an application with the claim of a conventional priority for an identical or confusingly similar trademark for homogeneous goods or services, a trademark registered under the accelerated procedure may be declared invalid.

Use of a trademark: A trademark may be terminated before expiry date due to non-use in the last three years preceding the filing date of the request for early termination of the trademark on the grounds of non-use.

The laws were published in the central newspaper of Turkmenistan Neutral Turkmenistan on June 19, 2019 and June 20, 2019 respectively.