You are using an outdated browser and your browsing experience will not be optimal. Please update to the latest version of Microsoft Edge, Google Chrome or Mozilla Firefox. Install Microsoft Edge

October 18, 2015

Licensing Facilitation Act to Enhance Trademark Registration Procedures

Subscribe to Updates
World Trademark Review

In an effort to reduce excessive bureaucratic procedures for obtaining registrations or licenses, Thailand has recently enacted a new law called the Licensing Facilitation Act BE 2558 (2015), which came into effect on July 21, 2015. The act requires government authorities to prepare a “public manual.”

In Thailand, red tape is one of the main obstacles to doing business. Thai laws usually give the authorities broad discretion in granting licenses, which ends up affecting business, because the costs, time, and outcome are unpredictable. Therefore, the Act aims to solve these issues by requiring the authorities to publish public manuals disclosing the rules, procedures, requirements, costs, and periods of time for granting the relevant licenses.

As required under the Act, the Department of Intellectual Property has published 33 public manuals issued by five offices, including the Trademark Office. The public manuals mainly specify information based on the laws, but they also specifically list all of the steps, estimated timelines, and workflow, which the laws do not provide. This article will focus on the timelines of six procedures, as discussed below.

1. Trademark registration. The registrar must check the application for registration and relevant documents within one day of the submission, and then examine the registrability of the mark within 11 months. If the registrar accepts the registration, publication of the mark must be arranged within one month and the mark will be published in the Trademark Journal  for three months. Once the three-month period has ended, if there is no opposition, the registrar shall order the mark’s registration and notify the applicant that it must pay the required fees within 15 days. If the fees are paid, the registrar shall issue a registration certificate within 15 days. The total period of time for all of these procedures is 16 months.

2. Amendment of trademark registration information. If the owner of a pending or registered trademark requests the amendment of certain information in the trademark registration, the registrar must check the relevant documents within one day and consider the application within 60 days from the date of filing of the application. If the registrar approves the amendment, the information will be changed within seven days. Therefore, the total period of time from the submission of the application to the amendment of the information is 68 days.

3. Assignment or inheritance of trademark rights. The assignment or inheritance of trademark rights must be registered with the registrar in accordance with ministerial regulations. Registration of the assignment or inheritance of trademark rights takes 68 days in total, which includes one day for checking the relevant documents, 60 days for consideration, and seven days for issuing a certificate of assignment or inheritance of trademark rights.

4. Trademark license registration. It is compulsory to register a license agreement with the Trademark Office pursuant to the Thai Trademark Act. The public manual specifies that the documents must be checked within one day. The registrar has 90 days from the date of receipt to consider the application. If the registrar approves the registration of the license agreement, the registrar has seven days to notify the applicant that it must pay fees within 30 days, and seven days to issue a certificate of trademark license agreement after receiving the fees. The total period for a granting trademark license registration is 105 days.

5. Renewal of trademark registration. Similarly to other procedures, the registrar must check the documents within one day and consider the application within 60 days. If the application is in accordance with the rules, the registrar shall renew the trademark registration within seven days. The total period of this process is 68 days.

6. Cancellation of trademark registration by the owner. The trademark owner may request the cancellation of its trademark registration. This procedure takes 31 days in total, namely one day for checking the documents and 30 days for considering the request.

Below is a summary of the length of time required for each trademark registration procedure:

Procedure

Total period of time
Trademark registration 16 months
Amendment of trademark registration information 68 days
Assignment or inheritance of trademark rights 68 days
Trademark licence registration 105 days
Renewal of trademark registration 68 days
Cancellation of trademark by the owner 31 days

In light of the above, it can be concluded that the Act will make the registration of trademarks faster than the current procedure, which takes at least 24 months. However, this will depend on how the authorities implement these public manuals in practice. Further, the authorities may be subject to disciplinary penalties for violating the act and, therefore, can be expected to work more efficiently.

Thailand will become a signatory to the Madrid Protocol by the end of 2015 and may implement either a 12-month rule or an 18-month rule for examining international trademark registrations. Pursuant to the Act, there is an obligation to complete a trademark examination within 11 months and trademark registrations must be finished within 16 months, according to the public manual. This means that trademarks can be registered through the Thai Trademark Office as an alternative to using the Madrid System.

Download Full Article
Related Professionals

Practices

Intellectual Property

Location

RELATED INSIGHTS​ 

September 30, 2026
Packaging is a valuable commercial asset that helps consumers identify and distinguish products through their shape, colors, graphics, labels, and overall presentation. Obtaining legal protections for these assets is thus an important step. Businesses entering into or operating in the Myanmar market should assess whether trademark protection, industrial design protection, or both provide the strongest IP strategy for these features. The country’s Intellectual Property Department (IPD) under the Ministry of Commerce now administers trademark and industrial design registrations since Myanmar’s modernization of its intellectual property framework through the enactment of four key IP laws in 2019. Trademark Protection for Packaging Under the Trademark Law 2019, a “mark” is any visually perceptible sign, including words, names, letters, numerals, figurative elements, color combinations, or combinations of these signs, capable of distinguishing one undertaking’s goods or services from another’s. Trademark protection may therefore extend to certain elements of product packaging that function as source identifiers. Depending on their presentation and distinctiveness, packaging elements such as brand names, logos, labels, configurations, color combinations, and three-dimensional (3D) shapes may qualify for trademark protection. However, under the current practice of the IPD and its available examination guidelines, the packaging and  trade dress (including product get-up) are not expressly recognized as separate registrable subject matter in Myanmar. Under the Trademark Law 2019, trademark infringement—including unauthorized use of a registered mark on packaging—may give rise to civil remedies, including injunctions and damages, as well as criminal penalties. A 3D mark may protect packaging shape or configuration if it has acquired distinctiveness through use and consumers associate it with the relevant products. However, a shape dictated by a functional or technical purpose is ineligible for registration. Registration of a 3D mark may be renewed indefinitely for successive ten-year periods, subject to compliance with renewal requirements. Industrial Design Protection
Read More
September 30, 2026
Under Thailand’s Patent Act B.E. 2522 (1979), any person may raise the invalidity of a patent as a matter of defense. However, the right to initiate court proceedings to cancel a patent is reserved exclusively for an “interested person” or the public prosecutor. This distinction between merely challenging validity and initiating judicial revocation proceedings has given rise to a significant body of Supreme Court (Dika) jurisprudence interpreting who qualifies as an “interested person” under the Patent Act. Statutory Framework Section 54 of the Patent Act provides that any invention patent granted not in compliance with the patentability requirements will be invalid, and that a petition to cancel such a patent may be submitted to the court by any “interested person” or the public prosecutor. Section 64 mirrors this provision for design patents, and section 65 novies extends the same framework to petty patents. However, none of these provisions defines the term “interested person,” leaving its interpretation to the courts. Supreme Court Interpretation The Thai Supreme Court has developed a consistent body of case law establishing that an “interested person” must be someone directly affected by the existence of the patent—not simply any member of the public. In 1989, the court found (Dika No. 2670/2532) that a party whose intended use of the patented technology was still in a preparatory stage—before actual manufacturing had commenced—did not qualify as an interested person. However, in 2009 the Supreme Court further elaborated  (Dika No. 2906/2552) that an interested party is one whose rights to utilize the invention are restricted by virtue of the patent, such as a manufacturer or producer whose operations are directly impacted by the patentee’s exclusive rights. In the 2008 case of T.M. Grating Steel Co., Ltd. v. Billion Mass Industry Co., Ltd. (Dika No. 974/2551), where the plaintiff had
Read More
September 24, 2026
Vietnam is implementing and developing a broad package of regulatory reforms that could reshape how IP, data, digital platforms, and product authenticity are regulated and enforced. Several of the key measures have been led by the Ministry of Public Security in its legislative and administrative capacity, as part of a broader government effort. The core reform package consists of four key legal instruments: proposed amendments to the Criminal Code, a proposed new Data Security Law, a draft Decree on Product Identification, Authentication and Traceability, and the newly enacted Decree No. 330/2026/ND-CP. These instruments include rules on criminal enforcement, data security, electronic identification, product identification and traceability, administrative violations, and cybersecurity sanctions. Combined, these measures will affect copyright enforcement, industrial property rights, trade secrets, AI training data, product provenance, online takedowns, valuation of counterfeit goods and electronic evidence. It is worth noting that, in addition to strengthening criminal penalties for IP crimes, Vietnam’s emerging regulatory framework increasingly treats infringement, data misuse, product authentication, and platform-enabled violations as interconnected regulatory and enforcement challenges. For rights holders and foreign investors, this could mean stronger tools against counterfeiting and online infringement, but also more compliance obligations around data, traceability, AI, platform controls and government-facing reporting. Expansion of Criminal IP Enforcement Proposed amendments to Article 225 of the Criminal Code would expand criminal copyright exposure beyond reproduction and distribution to cover large-scale commercial public performance and online communication of works, phonograms and video recordings. This is important because piracy is increasingly about streaming, unauthorized communication, and platform access models rather than physical copying. Aggravated copyright infringement could be subject to up to 10 years in prison for individuals and fines of up to VND 6 billion (about USD 228,300) for commercial legal entities. The amended Article 226 would expand criminal industrial property liability beyond
Read More
September 21, 2026
Thailand’s first-to-file trademark system has a serious vulnerability: it lacks both an explicit mechanism for refusing bad-faith registrations and any means of invalidating them in court after the five-year limitation period has expired. While brand owners worldwide confront trademark squatting, Thailand’s statutory silence stands out, particularly in light of AIPPI’s 2017 Resolution Q249, which recommended that every jurisdiction provide clear tools to address bad faith at all stages of the trademark lifecycle. Nearly a decade later, Thailand has yet to act. This article proposes a concrete reform blueprint, drawing on the legislative models of China, the United Kingdom, and the European Union. The Statutory Gap Under the Thai Trademark Act B.E. 2534, no provision expressly authorizes examiners to reject an application on grounds of bad faith. Section 8(10) addresses well-known marks but offers no relief where the targeted mark lacks well-known status. Practitioners have resorted to Section 8(9)—which bars marks “contrary to public order, morality, or public policy”—as a workaround. However, this provision was designed to address the characteristics of the mark itself, not the applicant’s intent. Thai Supreme Court decisions have split on whether it can reach bad-faith conduct, creating persistent legal uncertainty. The gap extends beyond examination. Civil actions to cancel a bad-faith registration must be brought within five years—a deadline that frequently expires before foreign brand owners discover the squatted mark. Cancellation through the Board of Trademarks remains available but is slow, costly, and subject to court appeal, leaving bad-faith registrations in force during protracted proceedings. The system effectively rewards squatters and penalizes legitimate owners. Lessons from International Best Practices Several major jurisdictions have already closed this gap. China’s 2019 amendment to Article 4 of the Trademark Law introduced an absolute ground for refusal: “bad faith trademark applications without intent to use shall be rejected.” Bad
Read More