How to register your business name or trademark

A trademark is any sign or medium that serves to distinguish one person’s products or services in the market from another’s. The Department of State defines it broadly, including drawings, emblems, words, names, letters, numbers, phrases, sounds, colours and shapes, and distinguishes four types: trademarks, service marks, certification marks and collective marks. A trade name is a different figure, with its own statute. The most common confusion is thinking that registering a corporation in the Registry of Corporations already protects the name: they are separate registries under separate laws, and one does not do the other’s job.

The owner of the trademark or trade name, or their representative, may apply, under Regulation No. 9585 for trademarks and Regulation No. 9584 for trade names. The Department of State specifies that the owner may be an individual, a corporation or an association. You do not need to be using the mark yet: Act 169-2009 allows applying to register a mark that has not been used in Puerto Rico commerce, subject to the three-year deadline for the first-use declaration.

• First running a search to check whether an identical or similar trademark or trade name exists, filed or registered, in the SEARCH section of the Registry page.Verified against the official source
• Filing the application through the Online Registration System of the Registry of Trademarks and Trade Names.Verified against the official source
• That the owner or their representative applies. The owner may be an individual, a corporation or an association.Verified against the official source
• If the mark is not yet in use in commerce: filing the first-use declaration online within three years of the application filing date.Verified against the official source

• The representation of the mark you want to register. The Department of State accepts drawings, emblems, words, names, letters, numbers, phrases, sounds, colours and shapes, among other signs.
• The owner’s details, whether individual, corporation or association, and the representative’s if there is one.

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   Step 1: Search before you apply

   The Department of State frames it as a prior step, not a suggestion: before applying you must run a search to check whether an identical or similar trademark or trade name exists, already filed or already registered. The SEARCH section is on the Registry’s own page. Skipping it is the fastest route to an application that goes nowhere and money that does not come back.

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   Step 2: Decide whether yours is a trademark or a trade name

   They are two figures under two statutes. Trademarks are governed by Act 169-2009 and Regulation 9585; trade names by Act 23-1992 and Regulation 9584. A trademark distinguishes products or services in the market. If what you want to protect is the sign you sell under — the logo, the word, the phrase — you are talking about a trademark. If you are unsure, that is the question to settle before filling anything in.

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   Step 3: Identify the type of mark

   The Department of State distinguishes four: trademarks, service marks, certification marks and collective marks. The service mark is what applies to someone offering services rather than products, and the collective mark belongs to members of a cooperative, association or organisation. Choosing the wrong type means redoing the application.

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   Step 4: Apply through the Online Registration System

   It is the route the Department of State publishes for filing the application and related transactions. The office attends Monday to Friday from 8:00am to 4:30pm if you need guidance, but the application itself is online.

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   Step 5: Mark the three years if you are not using it yet

   You can register a mark you are not yet using in Puerto Rico commerce, and many people do so to secure the name before opening. What almost nobody notes is the clock: Act 169-2009 gives you three years from the filing date to show you have begun using it, by filing the first-use declaration online. Note that date the same day you apply.

Through the Online Registration System of the Department of State’s Registry of Trademarks and Trade Names. The office attends Monday to Friday from 8:00am to 4:30pm.

• Believing that registering the corporation already protects the name: they are two separate registries.
• Applying without first running the search the Department of State expressly requires.
• Confusing a trademark with a trade name: two statutes, two regulations.
• Choosing the wrong type of mark among trademark, service, certification and collective.
• Registering an unused mark and letting the three years for the first-use declaration pass.
• Submitting the wrong transaction, which the Department of State warns is not refunded.

These are the government pages this guide is based on.

• Departamento de Estado de Puerto Rico

  Departamento de Estado

  www.estado.pr.gov