Your Logo Is Not Protected Until You Register It

Copyright is not the same as a trade mark

When a designer delivers a logo, two rights are in play. Copyright covers the artwork as a creative work. In the Czech Republic the author’s economic rights cannot be transferred, so a good contract gives you an exclusive licence broad enough for how you will use the logo. A trade mark is something else entirely: it is the right to use a sign, such as a name or a logo, in the course of trade for specific goods or services, and to stop others from using a confusingly similar one. Copyright arises automatically. A registered trade mark does not. It exists because an office examined an application and put it in the register.

This matters because copyright is a weak tool against the problem small businesses actually face. A competitor who draws a similar-looking mark for similar services has not copied your file, so a copyright argument is slow and uncertain. A registered trade mark gives you a much more direct claim: same or similar sign, same or similar goods, likely confusion.

What logo trademark registration actually gets you

A registration gives you the exclusive right to use the mark for the goods and services you listed, and the ability to prevent others from using or registering confusingly similar signs for them. It also gives you something practical: a document you can show a marketplace, a platform, or a domain registrar when you report an infringement. Without it, you are arguing about who was first. With it, the register answers that question.

It does not make you immune to disputes, and it does not protect everything in the world. Protection is tied to the classes you choose and to the territory where you registered.

Logo trademark registration: Czech or EU, choose by where you sell

A Czech trade mark filed with ÚPV costs 5,000 CZK for up to three classes, with 500 CZK for each additional class. It covers the Czech Republic only. An EU trade mark filed with EUIPO costs €850 for one class, €50 for a second, and €150 for each class after that, and it covers all 27 member states in a single registration. Both last ten years and can be renewed; the Czech renewal fee is 2,500 CZK.

The honest decision rule is about customers, not ambition. If you serve clients in Prague and Brno and have no plan to sell elsewhere, a Czech mark is proportionate. If you sell online to Germany, Austria, or Slovakia, or you work with international clients, the EU route buys you far more territory for a fee that is not proportionally larger. One caution: an EU trade mark is a single right. If a sign is blocked in one member state, for example because of an earlier conflicting mark there, the application can fail for the whole territory. That is why the search before filing matters more than the fee.

Word mark, figurative mark, or both

A word mark protects the name itself, in any lettering. A figurative mark protects the logo as you drew it: the shapes, the colours if you claim them, and the lettering. They answer different threats.

If your name is distinctive, the word mark is usually the stronger asset, because a competitor cannot avoid it by changing a font. If your logo is the part customers recognise, and especially if the name is descriptive, the figurative mark carries more weight. Many businesses file both, which costs more but covers both ways someone might copy you. If budget forces a choice, ask which one you would actually be hurt to lose.

This is also where the design brief connects. A logo built around a very common word, a generic symbol, or a shape that many companies in your field already use is harder to register and harder to defend. Distinctiveness is a design property before it is a legal one.

The search nobody wants to do

Here is the detail that surprises most applicants: the Czech office does not search for earlier conflicting marks on its own initiative. It examines your application against formal and absolute grounds, but it is up to the owners of earlier rights to object. After publication there is a three-month opposition period during which they can do exactly that. An application that sails through examination can still be attacked afterwards.

So search first. Look through the Czech and EU registers for the same or similar names and logos in your field, and look beyond identical matches: similar sound, similar look, similar meaning. A trade mark attorney can do this properly and tell you the risk in plain words. It is the cheapest part of the process compared with rebranding after a dispute.

Choose classes honestly

Classes are the categories of goods and services your mark covers. They are tempting to inflate, because adding a class is cheap. Do not. A mark that is not used for the goods and services it is registered for, for five years after registration, can be revoked at the request of a third party. Registering broadly “just in case” costs you fees today and a weaker position later. List what you sell now and what you will realistically sell soon, and no more.

Beware the registry invoice

Once your application is published, your details become public, and a certain kind of company reads them. Small businesses regularly receive official-looking invoices or payment demands from private registries, often with names that sound like an office, asking for a “registration fee” or a “publication fee”. EUIPO has warned about these directly: they are not from the office, and you do not owe them. The real office will only ask for fees through its own channels. If a letter about your mark arrives asking for money, check it against the office’s own website before paying anything.

Can I get help with the fee?

For EU marks there is a programme worth knowing about. The SME Fund has offered vouchers covering a share of trade mark and design application fees for small businesses. At the time of writing, EUIPO states that the 2026 trade mark vouchers have been exhausted, so check the current status before you plan around it, and do not assume it will be available when you file.

A sensible order of operations for logo trademark registration

First, finish the logo and make sure your designer contract gives you a written, exclusive licence that covers all the uses you plan, including registering the logo as a trade mark. Second, decide the territory by where your customers are. Third, search the registers. Fourth, choose between word mark, figurative mark, or both. Fifth, file for the classes you genuinely use. Then use the mark consistently, because registered use is what keeps it alive.

None of this is a reason to delay your launch. Plenty of small businesses start with an unregistered logo and register once the brand has proven itself. The point is that the decision should be deliberate, and it is far cheaper to make it before you have invested in signage, packaging, and a website than after.

• EUIPO — Fees and payments: https://www.euipo.europa.eu/en/trade-marks/before-applying/fees-and-payments
• EUIPO — Misleading invoices: https://www.euipo.europa.eu/en/trade-marks/after-applying/misleading-invoices
• EUIPO — SME Fund: https://www.euipo.europa.eu/en/the-office/sme-corner/sme-fund
• Industrial Property Office of the Czech Republic (ÚPV) — Trade marks: https://upv.gov.cz/en/trademarks
• EUIPO — Revocation for non-use: https://www.euipo.europa.eu/en/trade-marks/after-applying/revocation