Thailand: registration of sound trademarks

Filing sound trademarks in Thailand has become possible due to Ministerial Regulation No. 5 BE 2560 (under the Trademark Act (No. 3) BE 2559) taking effect since September 1st, 2017.

In spite of the fact that registration of sound trademarks was adopted along with other amendments to the Trademark Act on July 28, 2016, in practice, the said opportunity was not available as no Ministerial Regulation for its implementation had been adopted before.

Under the Regulation, an applicant who wishes to register a sound trademark in Thailand should provide the Department of Intellectual Property with:

- audio recording of the sound trademark (for a maximum duration of 30 seconds) in a digital format via a portable device (such as a USB flash drive);

- written description of the sound, in addition to a list of the goods and services that the applicant wishes to register the sound trademark in; and

- form of sound representation as sheet music or a sound-graph (optional).

The Trademark Office of the Department of Intellectual Property for Thailand has also released a handbook guide which provides an example of sounds that are ineligible for registration, e.g. the sound of cows for dairy products.

For more information on registration of IP types in Thailand and other countries worldwide, please review our applicant’s guide. Also, we welcome you to visit our quotation system to get an actual quote for the protection of your IP rights.