Trademark Registration Cost and Timeline in Pakistan

Pakistan operates a single-class filing system. Rule 13 of the Trade Marks Rules 2004 confines every application to one class, and rule 14 treats the same mark in different classes as separate applications, each on Form TM-1 (rule 12(2)); a mark needed in four classes is four applications and four filing fees. This is the single largest driver of official cost and the point most often missed in budgeting.

The official fees in the First Schedule, as published by IPO-Pakistan, are:

• Registry search, per mark per class — Form TM-55: PKR 1,000.
• Application to register one mark in one class — Form TM-1: PKR 3,000.
• Application claiming convention priority — Form TM-2: PKR 3,000.
• Request for extension of time — Form TM-56: PKR 1,500.
• Correction of a clerical error or amendment of the application — Form TM-16: PKR 600.
• Restoration of an application treated as abandoned — Form TM-57: PKR 1,500.
• Notice of opposition, per application opposed — Form TM-5: PKR 9,000.
• Counter-statement answering an opposition — Form TM-6: PKR 1,500.
• Notice of intention to attend a hearing, by each party — Form TM-7: PKR 600.
• Registration fee, payable on the demand notice — Form TM-11: PKR 9,000.
• Renewal for a further ten years — Form TM-12: PKR 15,000.
• Additional fee for late payment of renewal under rule 52(1) — Form TM-12: PKR 900.
• Restoration of a mark removed from the Register — Form TM-13: PKR 3,000.
• Recordal of an assignment applied for within six months of acquisition — Form TM-23: PKR 6,000; after six months: PKR 7,500.
• Recordal of a registered licensee, first mark — Form TM-28: PKR 3,000.
• Change of the proprietor's name, first mark — Form TM-33: PKR 1,500.
• Change of address, first entry — Form TM-34: PKR 600.
• Rectification of the Register — Form TM-26: PKR 2,250.

So an uncontested single-class application that draws no objection carries PKR 3,000 on filing and PKR 9,000 on registration — PKR 12,000 of official fees, plus PKR 1,000 if a Registry search is run first. An opposed application adds PKR 1,500 for the counter-statement on Form TM-6 and PKR 600 on Form TM-7 for each party's notice of intention to attend a hearing, before any evidence or professional work.

Payment is not made in cash. IPO-Pakistan requires a pay order or bank draft drawn in favour of the Director General, IPO-Pakistan; the Trade Marks Registry does not accept cash.

Form TM-48, the authorisation of an agent, carries no official fee but must be stamped under the Stamp Act 1899 — a separate provincial stamp cost.

The published schedule is the floor, not the budget. The variable elements are:

• The number of classes, because each class is a separate application at the full TM-1 and TM-11 fees.
• Whether a search and clearance review is run before filing, and how wide it is drawn.
• Whether the Registry issues an examination report, and how substantial the reply has to be.
• Whether a hearing is required before the Registrar, and how many.
• Whether a third party files an opposition, which converts a filing into inter partes proceedings with evidence by statutory declaration or affidavit.
• Whether documents need translation — rule 30(11) requires an attested English translation, in duplicate, of any document referred to in opposition papers that is in another language.

Professional fees depend on these variables and are quoted per matter.

Published estimates for Pakistan range from eight to eighteen months, which is unhelpful without knowing what is being measured. IPO-Pakistan resolves this itself: the Trade Marks Registry publishes an Average Process Time table giving a target disposal time for each office action. Those are the registry's own service standards, and they are the right basis for a schedule.

IPO-Pakistan's published average disposal times for the Trade Marks Registry are:

• Acknowledgement receipt on filing: fifteen days.
• First examination report (classification, formal examination, similarity search and reporting): four months.
• Action on a reply received from the applicant: three months.
• Acceptance and publication after compliance: two months.
• Registration where no opposition is received — acceptance, publication, the two-month opposition window and issue of the demand notice: six months.
• Registration certificate, from receipt of the demand-notice fee: three months.
• Search report on Form TM-55: fifteen days.
• Miscellaneous requests not requiring a hearing (certified copies, change of name or address, assignment or licence): one month.
• Opposition proceedings: "It depends on case to case basis".
• Invalidation or cancellation proceedings: "It depends on case to case basis".

Two cautions on reading that table. Its column heading says "working days" while the entries are given in weeks and months — the entries are what the registry publishes and what practitioners work to. And IPO-Pakistan's own trade mark guidelines and FAQs give the first examination report as issuing "after 3 months of filing an application", against four months in the Average Process Time table. The two official sources do not agree, and a matter should be diarised to the longer period.

Taking IPO-Pakistan's published steps in sequence gives a realistic shape rather than a single number:

• Application accepted without objection and not opposed: four months to the examination stage, six months through acceptance, publication, the opposition window and the demand notice, then three months to the certificate — on the registry's own figures, in the region of thirteen months from filing.
• Application drawing an examination report: add the two months the applicant has to reply and the three months the registry allows itself to act on that reply — in the region of eighteen months.
• Opposed application: IPO-Pakistan declines to publish a figure, and so should anyone else. The evidence rounds under rule 30 alone run to several months before a hearing is appointed.

These are the registry's targets, not guarantees, and the arithmetic above is ours rather than IPO-Pakistan's. Actual disposal varies with the Registry's workload and with the conduct of the matter.

Most of the avoidable expense in a Pakistani trade mark file comes from a missed period, not from a fee. The statutory and prescribed periods that matter most are these.

Replying to an examination report — two months

Where the Registrar communicates an objection or a proposal to accept subject to conditions, rule 27(2) of the Trade Marks Rules 2004 gives the applicant two months from the date of that communication to amend, make representations or apply for a hearing. If none of those happens, the application is deemed to have been abandoned. An abandoned application may be restored under rule 27(3) on Form TM-57, with a statement of case, within two months of the abandonment — a narrow window and an avoidable PKR 1,500.

Opposition — two months from advertisement, extendable to four

Section 28(2) of the Trade Marks Ordinance 2001 allows any person to oppose within two months from the date of the advertisement or re-advertisement in the Trade Marks Journal, "or within such further period not exceeding two months in the aggregate" as the Registrar may allow. Rule 30(1) repeats this for the Form TM-5 notice. Rule 80(3) expressly excludes the opposition and counter-statement periods from the Registrar's general power to extend time, so the four-month outer limit is real.

Once opposed, rule 30(2) gives the applicant one month from receipt of the notice to file a counter-statement on Form TM-6, extendable to two months in the aggregate; failing that the applicant is deemed to have abandoned the application. Rule 30(5) then gives the opponent two months to file evidence, and rule 30(6) deems the opposition abandoned if no evidence is filed.

Completing the registration — a 21-day notice and a 12-month backstop

Section 33(2) provides that a mark is not registered unless the prescribed registration fee is paid within the prescribed period, failing which the application is treated as abandoned under the Rules. Where registration is not completed within twelve months from the date of the application because of the applicant's default, section 33(5) allows the Registrar, after notice, to treat the application as abandoned; rule 32 requires that notice to specify twenty-one days for completion. Rule 33 then requires the Registrar to enter the mark in the Register within two months of receiving the Form TM-11 fee.

Term and renewal — ten years, from the filing date

A registered mark runs for ten years from the date of registration (section 34(1)), and section 33(3) deems the date of registration to be the date of filing of the application. The ten-year clock therefore starts on filing, not on the certificate — a point that matters when a registration is granted two years after filing. Registration is renewable for further ten-year periods (section 34(2)).

Renewal, the grace period and restoration

Rule 51 requires the renewal request on Form TM-12 to be filed within the six months ending on the date of expiry. If the renewal fee is not paid by expiry, rule 52(1) requires the Registrar to advertise the non-payment in the Journal, and the registration can still be renewed without removal if the renewal fee, the request and the prescribed additional fee reach the Registry within six months of that advertisement. Only if that passes does rule 52(2) remove the mark. Once removed, rule 53(1) allows restoration on Form TM-13 within six months of the date of removal, on payment of the renewal and restoration fees, if the Registrar is satisfied it is just to do so.

Section 36 adds a trap for anyone clearing a new mark: a mark removed for non-payment is still treated as being on the Register for one year after removal when a later application is examined, unless the tribunal is satisfied there was no bona fide use in the two years before removal or that no confusion would arise.

Section 35(5) also provides that, except on a first renewal, the Registrar may require evidence of use of the mark in Pakistan with the renewal request. Foreign proprietors who have registered defensively should plan for that.

The Trade Marks Registry sits in Karachi, at IP-House, Plot CD-3 behind the KDA Civic Centre, Gulshan-e-Iqbal. IPO-Pakistan states that applications may also be lodged at its headquarters in Islamabad or its regional office in Lahore, at the Lahore Chamber of Commerce and Industry building. Examination, publication and registration are handled centrally by the Registry wherever the papers are lodged, so the choice of counter affects logistics, not procedure or cost.

A usable estimate needs four facts: the mark, the goods or services, the classes those fall in, and whether any earlier right is already on the Register. A clearance search on Form TM-55 at PKR 1,000 per class answers the fourth before the larger fees are committed.

Review how the stages fit together before budgeting. Trademark registration procedure in Pakistan

Assess earlier-rights risk before filing fees are committed. Trademark search and clearance in Pakistan

Work out how many classes, and so how many filing fees, a mark needs. Trademark classes in Pakistan

Understand what an examination report requires and by when. Trademark objections in Pakistan

Plan for the contested route and its evidence rounds. Trademark opposition in Pakistan

Keep renewal and ownership records current. Trademark renewal and recordal in Pakistan

Filing from outside Pakistan? Review what a foreign applicant must provide. Pakistan trademark filing for foreign applicants

Comparing quotations? Review what else to check before instructing a firm. How to choose an IP lawyer in Pakistan

For filing, prosecution and portfolio work in Pakistan, review our trademark practice. Trademark Law services in Pakistan

Official fees and forms are published by IPO-Pakistan and can be revised by notification. The figures on this page were checked against the IPO-Pakistan fee schedule on 2 October 2026; the current schedule should be confirmed before any filing is made.