ndustrial Property Law No. 9279, of May 1996, ensures any company or independent professional the registration request of their trademark for the protection and guaranty of their rights against third parties. This protection can be extended to other countries if applied for in the country of interest, within 180 days after the application in Brazil.

The trademark is a distinct signal of products and services and its protection is directly linked to the owner's activity segment. This principle makes the party interested in the trademark request a protection only for the line of products and services where an effective activity exists. Every trademark application must obligatorily correspond to one class only and will contain the specification of all the products or services it applies to.

The technical part requires a special layout, dispatch and protocol of the entire initial process, as well as the follow-up of the procedural process, through on-line systems with INPI and the consequent communication to the customer for acknowledgement of each updated stage.

A trademark application will have to comply with of the following types:

-Word mark - comprising only letters and digits (no styling)
-Figurative - comprising only a logo (drawing, image, figure, etc.)
-Trademark and design - comprising both the above elements or styled nominative elements, comprising a differentiated set

Also in relation to their use, the trademarks can be classified in Product, Service, Collective or Certification trademarks.

Every trademark registration will be valid for 10 years, from the date of the INPI concession. For maintenance purposes the trademark will have to be effectively used and extended within stipulated legal terms. The starting term of effective use is 5 years, from the date of the concession, and is subject to the extinction of the registration by third party requests or for the lack of renewal.