The Trademark Office in Iraq recently announced that a legalized copy of the home registration certificate must be submitted in support of trademark applications in class 5 at the time of filing. Marks that are identical to the name of the applicant are exempted from this requirement.
It is worth noting that under the previous requirements, applicants were asked to provide the following information when filing a trademark application in class 5: (1) international nonproprietary name; (2) name of manufacturer; (3) name of distributor; and (4) product label. All of this has been dropped.
By way of background, class 5 covers pharmaceutical and veterinary preparations and sanitary preparations for medical purposes. Iraq currently follows the 7th edition of the Nice Classification with a local sub-classification system, and a single class may include several classes. Furthermore, the trademark registration process in Iraq differs significantly from other jurisdictions. This is due to the fact that examination on relative grounds is performed once applications are docketed at the Iraqi Trademark Office, and the filing date and filing number are only issued in the event that the application passes examination.
Syria is the only other country in the Middle East and North Africa region to impose filing requirements that are specific to class 5, requiring certificate of origin and list of ingredients. For the remaining countries in the MENA region, the process remains standard regardless of class.
In light of this new development in Iraq, the revised statutory requirements for filing a trademark application in class 5, along with the authentication procedures will be as follows:
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Filing Requirements for Class 5 |
What you need to know |
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• POA, legalized • Copy of priority document, if priority is claimed, certified • Copy of home registration certificate, legalized |
• A general POA may be used for subsequent filings • POA and copy of priority document may be submitted within 6 months from filing date • Copy of home registration certificate must be submitted at the time of applying for the mandatory search • The date of notarization of POA must precede the date of filing |
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