NIGERIA

Filing Trademark

English is the official language used to prosecute the Nigerian trademark application. At the time of filing, all application materials must be translated into English.

In order to determine the date of filing, a trademark application in Nigeria needs to include the following: a trademark representation.

• The application
• The list of products and/or services
• Evidence that the required fees have been paid.

It is not necessary to have the Power of Attorney notarized or legalised. It is possible to send a scanned copy of it at the time the application is filed or later.

Conventional priority cannot now be claimed when submitting a trademark application in Nigeria.

Trademark Renewal

The Notice of Allowance must be issued before the official grant fee is due. In Nigeria, a trademark’s validity period is seven years from the date of filing, renewed every fourteen years after that. The application for renewal needs to be submitted three months before the registration’s expiration date. If the appropriate premium is paid, the trademark may be renewed within a month of the renewal deadline. After paying the designated surcharge, the missing one-month term for the renewal fee may be restored. There isn’t a timeline for the restoration in question.

Duration

If everything goes according to plan, the processing time from the initial filing to registration is between 12 to 16 months.