Thai Department of Intellectual Property — Trademarks and Patents
Thailand’s registry for brands, inventions and designs — where, for trademarks, the queue is decided by who filed first.
www.ipthailand.go.th
What you can do
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Protect a brand name or logo
A registered trade or service mark gives you the exclusive right to use that name or symbol on the goods and services listed in the registration.
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First to file, first in line
Thailand runs a first-to-file system for trademarks. The filing date sets the order, not how long you have been using the name.
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Search the existing register
The department’s database lets you check whether anyone has already filed or registered something identical or similar — before you spend the fee and the waiting time.
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Patents, petty patents and designs
Beyond brands, the department registers inventions and processes as well as the appearance of a product — separate rights with separate procedures.
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Record a copyright as evidence
Copyright exists the moment a work is created, with no registration needed — but recording it with the department gives you a document to point to when ownership is questioned.
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The right stops at the border
A Thai registration covers Thailand. Rights elsewhere mean filing in each country you care about, or using the international routes Thailand belongs to.
What the Department of Intellectual Property does
The Department of Intellectual Property sits under the Ministry of Commerce and acts as Thailand’s registrar for intellectual property: trade and service marks, invention patents, petty patents and product design patents, along with copyright recordation. Besides keeping the register, it maintains the databases used to search rights that already exist — the first tool to reach for before settling on a brand name or launching a product.
What each type of right actually protects
In everyday Thai people say “register the copyright” for almost anything, yet a shop name, a manufacturing process and the shape of a product fall into completely different categories. Picking the wrong one at the outset spends time and money on an application that does not cover the thing you were actually worried about.
| Type | What it protects | When the right arises |
|---|---|---|
| Trademark / service mark | A brand name, logo or symbol used on goods or services so customers can tell whose they are | On registration, with priority set by the filing date |
| Invention patent | An invention or process that is new and industrially applicable | On registration, after substantive examination |
| Petty patent | An invention that is new and useful but less advanced than one meriting a full patent | On registration, with a different examination path and a shorter term |
| Design patent | The shape, pattern or colour composition that gives a product its look — not how it functions | On registration |
| Copyright | Creative works such as text, images, music, film and software | The moment the work is created; recording it is evidence, not the source of the right |
Search before you file — the step most often skipped
Filing costs a fee and takes time to examine, so a refusal means losing both and receiving no right in return. One common ground for refusal is that the mark is identical or confusingly similar to one filed or registered earlier. Searching the department’s database first is a few hours’ work that saves the fee and the wait, and tells you early whether to adjust the name or the styling before ordering signage and packaging.
- Words spelled differently but pronounced alike, including Thai transliterations of the same English word
- Similar marks in the same or related classes, not only letter-for-letter matches
- Words that plainly describe the goods or their qualities, often treated as too unspecific to belong to anyone
- Geographic names, generic product names, and symbols the law bars from registration such as national flags and official emblems
- Images and lettering, not just spelling — visual similarity is a ground for refusal too
What happens after you file
- File the application with the image of the mark, the list of goods or services, and the applicant’s documents
- Formal examination of the paperwork; if anything is missing, the department writes asking you to correct it
- Substantive examination: whether the mark is distinctive, not prohibited, and not identical or confusingly similar to an earlier one
- Publication of the application, giving anyone who believes they hold a better right the chance to oppose
- If no opposition is filed or it does not succeed, you pay the registration fee and receive the certificate of registration
Classes, and the limits of what you get
A trademark does not protect your name in every context — only for the goods or services listed in the application, grouped into classes under an international system. The same word can therefore belong to different owners in different classes: a restaurant and a software product, say. Writing the list to match what you sell now and will sell soon matters more than most people expect, and because the scope you claim affects the fee, check the current rates on the department’s site before deciding.
Why this page exists
Search “จดเครื่องหมายการค้า” in Thai and the top results are usually filing agents and law firms with real advertising and ranking budgets, while the office that actually grants the right sits well below them. Plenty of small businesses pay for help without ever learning they may file themselves. In our own check the department’s site answered a full desktop-browser request profile with a firewall block page — even the request for robots.txt came back as that block page rather than the file — so the site’s real crawler policy cannot be read from outside, and we draw no conclusion about the genuine Googlebot, which requests from Google’s own IP ranges and verifies itself by reverse DNS. Refusals shaped like this usually filter datacentre traffic broadly rather than single out search engines, but the practical effect is that outside tools — web archives, third-party monitoring and the AI assistants people ask about government services — cannot check or keep a copy of what the site says. So this page does one thing: explain each right in the words people really use, then point at the official source. ThaiGov.co is an independent directory with no connection to the department; we file nothing on anyone’s behalf and charge nothing.
How to use it
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Match the right to the thing you are protecting
Start by naming what you are protecting. The name and symbol on the packaging is a trademark; a mechanism or process is a patent or petty patent; the shape and pattern of the product itself is a design patent; and creative material such as text, images or code is copyright. One product can involve several of these at once.
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Search for earlier marks
Search the department’s database for your own spelling, for words that sound alike, and for translations or transliterations — marks do not have to match letter for letter to be confusingly similar. If something very close already exists in the same kind of goods, changing the name now is far cheaper than arguing about it later.
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Define your goods, services and classes
Describe what you actually sell and what you plan to sell soon, because protection reaches only the items you list. Too narrow and a competitor can use a similar name on adjacent goods; too broad and you increase the chance of colliding with someone else’s mark.
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Prepare the mark and your documents, then file
You will need a clean image of the mark in the required form, the applicant’s details, and identification or a company certificate; if someone files on your behalf, a power of attorney as well. Check the current document list and fee rates on the department’s site first — the scope you ask for affects what you pay.
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Track the file and answer on time
Filing is not the end of the job. The department may write asking you to correct documents, explain something, or notify you of an examination result, and each letter states its own deadline. Keep your application number, check the status periodically, and do not let a deadline pass — an unanswered letter can end an application that had nothing wrong with it.
Go to the official site
You are leaving ThaiGov.co for the agency’s official website — www.ipthailand.go.th
Frequently asked questions
What is the difference between a trademark, a patent and copyright?
A trademark protects the name or symbol used on goods and services so customers know whose they are. A patent protects an invention or process that is new and industrially applicable, while a design patent protects how a product looks rather than how it works. Copyright arises by itself the moment a work is finished, with no registration required, though you may record it with the department as evidence.
Do I have to search before filing?
It is not compulsory, but it is one of the highest-value steps you can take. A common ground for refusal is that the mark is identical or confusingly similar to something filed earlier, and knowing that early lets you adjust the name or the list of goods before you pay the fee and order a whole run of signage and packaging.
I have used my brand name for years without filing. Am I safe?
Long use does not hand you a registration, and in a first-to-file system whoever filed the name first is in the better position. If that happens you may have to oppose or contest it on evidence of your earlier use, which costs far more in time and money than filing would have.
Does a Thai registration protect me abroad?
No — the right runs only inside Thailand. If you export, sell through overseas platforms or plan to expand, you file in each country you want covered, or use the international routes Thailand is party to: the Madrid Protocol for trademarks and the Patent Cooperation Treaty for patents.
The department sent a letter asking me to amend or explain. What now?
Read it closely first, because missing documents, a vague list of goods and a mark seen as lacking distinctiveness are different problems with different fixes. Then reply within the deadline the letter itself states, and do not let it lapse. Where the objection turns on similarity and rests on legal argument, advice from someone who works in intellectual property usually beats a reply written from intuition.
I received a letter or email demanding payment about my trademark. Is it real?
Official-looking invoices from private companies that are not government offices circulate worldwide, usually about a renewal or about entering your name in some register. The safe move is to click nothing and pay nothing from the document itself: type the department’s address yourself, check the status of your own application, and confirm the application number and owner name match exactly. If doubt remains, contact the department through the channels published on the official site.
Do I need an agent or a lawyer?
For a straightforward application — an ordinary word mark, an uncomplicated list of goods — plenty of business owners handle it themselves. For messier situations, such as a close earlier mark, an objection to argue, an opposition, or an applicant based overseas, an experienced agent genuinely helps. Just remember that an agent’s service charge is separate from the official fees, and ask for the two to be itemised before you agree.