This guide sets out what protection actually exists in Thailand, in what order to secure it, and what each layer does and does not cover. It covers both halves of the problem, because they sit either side of a line that most businesses only notice once it has been crossed. A brand is created by designers and strategists. It is owned, defended and enforced through law. Work done badly on one side is expensive to fix on the other.
The legal sections were reviewed by Ananda Intellectual Property, the Bangkok and Hong Kong intellectual property law firm AMS works with on brand protection.
One note before starting: this article is general information about Thai practice as it stands in 2026, not legal advice on any specific brand. Timelines shift with Department of Intellectual Property workloads, and legislation on industrial designs is currently under revision. Anything that affects a real filing decision should be checked with an IP attorney.
The One Rule That Changes Everything: Thailand Is First to File
In some jurisdictions, using a name in commerce builds up rights in that name over time. Thailand does not work that way in any practical sense. Thailand operates a first-to-file system: the party who files the application generally holds the rights, regardless of who used the name first.
Prior use gives limited defensive arguments, and genuinely well-known marks have some protection against bad-faith filings, but neither is a substitute for registration. Both require litigation to assert, which means paying to prove something a filing would have settled at the outset.
The practical consequences show up in ways that surprise people:
A distributor, franchisee, importer or local partner can register your brand in their own name, and be legally within their rights to do so. Reclaiming it means proving bad faith, which is slow and uncertain.
A competitor who sees your launch campaign can file before you do. Your marketing spend has effectively advertised the opportunity.
A supplier or contract manufacturer can register the mark in Thailand and use it as leverage in a commercial negotiation.
This is why the sequencing in this guide matters more than any individual step. Protection filed in the right order costs a fraction of protection reconstructed after a conflict.
What You Do Not Own Yet
Three things are routinely mistaken for brand ownership in Thailand. None of them are.
A registered company name is not a trademark. Reserving and registering a company name with the Department of Business Development establishes the legal name of a juristic entity. It does not give exclusive rights to use that name as a brand on goods or services, and it does not stop anyone else from registering the same or a similar word as a trademark. Companies frequently discover this when their own company name is refused as a trademark because someone else registered it first.
A domain name is not a trademark. Owning yourbrand.com or yourbrand.co.th means you have a subscription to a domain registration. It gives no exclusive right to the name in commerce.
A social media handle is not anything at all. Platform accounts are licences that can be reassigned, suspended or claimed by a party with a registered trademark. A verified account is not evidence of ownership.
Copyright is the one right that arises automatically, and it does real work, but it protects the artwork rather than the name. That distinction is covered in detail below.
The Four Layers, and What Each One Covers
Brand protection in Thailand is not a single registration. It is a small stack of separate rights, each covering a different asset, with different terms, costs and offices.
Layer | What it protects | Registration | Term | Registered where |
|---|---|---|---|---|
Trademark | Brand name, logo, slogan, sound, colour combination, as used on specific goods or services | Required for practical protection | 10 years from filing date, renewable indefinitely in 10-year periods | Department of Intellectual Property |
Copyright | The artwork itself: logo drawing, illustration, packaging design, photography, website, copy, code | Automatic on creation; recordation optional but advisable | Generally life of the author plus 50 years; 25 years for applied art | Recorded at the Department of Intellectual Property |
Design registration | Appearance of a product or its packaging: shape, configuration, ornamentation, pattern | Required, and novelty is destroyed by prior disclosure | Currently 10 years from filing (reform pending) | Department of Intellectual Property, as a design patent |
Domain | The web address only | Contractual registration | Renewable annually | THNIC for .th, ICANN registrars for gTLDs |
Most brands need at least the first two. Product, packaging and retail brands usually need the third. All of them need the fourth handled deliberately rather than by whoever happened to set up the website.
Step 1: Protect the Name Before You Fall in Love With It
The most expensive mistake in branding is not a weak name. It is a strong name that cannot be registered, discovered after the identity, packaging and signage have been produced.
The sequence that avoids this runs brand naming and clearance in parallel rather than one after the other, because the cost of learning too late is so asymmetric. A shortlist of names goes to legal search before creative development starts, not after it finishes.
Distinctiveness comes first
Thai law requires a mark to be distinctive, not prohibited by law, and not identical or confusingly similar to an earlier mark. Distinctiveness is where most rejections happen, and it is largely a naming decision rather than a legal one.
Generic and directly descriptive terms are refused. A name that simply describes the product, its quality, its ingredients or its geographic origin will usually fail, in English or in Thai. Coined words, arbitrary words and suggestive names register far more easily than descriptive ones.
This is worth saying plainly to anyone weighing a descriptive name for its short-term SEO or shelf clarity benefits: a name that explains the product to a shopper in one second is often the same name that cannot be owned. The choice between the two is a strategic one, made best at the start.
Search before you commit
A clearance search checks the Department of Intellectual Property register for identical and similar marks in the relevant classes, and looks beyond exact matches to phonetic similarity, visual similarity and conceptual similarity. In Thailand it also has to consider the Thai-script rendering of a foreign name, and how a Thai examiner and a Thai consumer would hear it.
Search results are advisory rather than binding. Examiners exercise judgment, and a mark that looks clear can still meet an objection. What a search does is convert an unknown risk into a graded one, so that a shortlist can be ranked by legal risk alongside creative merit.
Check the name in Thai, not just in English
This is where branding and law overlap most directly. A name that transliterates awkwardly into Thai, or that carries an unintended meaning when spoken by a Thai consumer, creates two problems at once: a commercial problem in market, and a registration problem if the Thai rendering collides with an existing mark.
For brands operating seriously in Thailand, the Thai-script version of the name is usually worth filing as its own mark, alongside the Latin-script version. They are treated as separate marks. Registering one does not automatically protect the other. AMS covers the cultural and linguistic side of this in Beyond Translation; the filing strategy side belongs with counsel.
Choose classes deliberately
Thailand follows the Nice Classification of 45 classes, with a local characteristic that catches out applicants used to other jurisdictions: broad class headings are not accepted. Descriptions such as "clothing" or "cosmetics" will be rejected. Each item of goods or services has to be specified individually, and the Department of Intellectual Property maintains an approved list of acceptable descriptions.
Two consequences follow. First, filing costs scale with the number of items specified, so the specification is a budget decision as well as a legal one. Second, the specification needs to reflect the business plan rather than only current activity. A skincare brand that will license into supplements, or a restaurant that will franchise, protects the future business only if those classes are covered.
Since 2016 Thailand has permitted multi-class applications, so goods and services in several classes can sit in a single application. There is a practical trade-off: an objection in any one class holds up the whole application, and a multi-class application currently cannot be divided after filing. Where speed on a core class matters, separate single-class filings sometimes register faster. This is a judgment call worth putting to your attorney rather than defaulting either way.
Step 2: The Trademark Application, Step by Step
Once the name is cleared and classes are set, the filing itself follows a defined sequence.
Filing. The application is submitted to the Department of Intellectual Property with the applicant's details, a clear representation of the mark, and the specified list of goods or services. Foreign applicants file through a Thai agent under a notarised power of attorney. The filing date is the date that matters: it sets priority against later applicants, and the eventual 10-year term runs from it.
Examination. The examiner checks the mark for distinctiveness, legality and availability against earlier marks. If an objection is raised, there is a deadline to respond with argument or amendment. Objections are common and are not the end of an application, but they add months.
Publication. An accepted mark is published in the Trademark Gazette. Publication starts a 60-day window in which any third party can file an opposition. If an opposition is filed, the applicant files a counterstatement within 60 days of receiving it, and the matter is decided by the Registrar, with rights of appeal beyond that.
Registration. If no opposition is filed, or an opposition is resolved in the applicant's favour, the registration fee falls due within 60 days of notification, and the certificate issues.
How long it takes
For a straightforward application with no objection and no opposition, expect roughly 12 to 18 months from filing to certificate. Objections or oppositions extend that materially, sometimes by years in contested cases.
None of this delay affects your priority. Rights run from the filing date, so a pending application already secures the position against later filers. The wait affects enforcement, not ownership: full remedies are available once the mark is registered.
The term, and the renewal that gets missed
A Thai trademark registration lasts 10 years from the filing date and can be renewed for successive 10-year periods, indefinitely, as long as renewals are filed on time.
Renewal is filed within the three months before expiry. There is a six-month grace period after expiry with a surcharge. Miss that, and the registration is treated as abandoned. Thailand has no restoration procedure: the only route back is a fresh application, which loses the original filing date and re-exposes the mark to anyone who filed in the meantime.
Ten years is long enough that a renewal date outlives most marketing directors, most agencies and several CRM systems. The single most useful administrative habit in brand protection is a docket of renewal dates held by a firm whose business it is to watch them.
What can be registered beyond a word
Since the 2016 amendments, Thailand has broadened what qualifies as a mark. Word marks, device or logo marks, combined marks, colour combinations and sound marks can all be registered. Scent marks cannot. Slogans face the same distinctiveness test as names, and purely promotional phrases usually fail.
Step 3: Protect the Logo, Which Means Two Rights at Once
A logo occupies an unusual position. It is a brand identifier, which makes it a trademark. It is also an original artistic work, which makes it a copyright work. Those two rights are separate, they arise differently, and they protect against different things.
The trademark stops a competitor using a confusingly similar mark on similar goods or services. The copyright stops anyone reproducing the artwork itself, whatever they use it for. A brand normally wants both.
Word mark, logo mark, or both
A common question in identity projects is whether to register the wordmark, the symbol, or the full lockup. The general answer is that they protect different things and the strongest position covers more than one.
A word mark in plain characters protects the name however it is styled, which survives a rebrand of the visual identity. A device mark protects the specific graphic, including a symbol that works without the name. A combined lockup protects the two together, but protection can be read more narrowly, because the distinctiveness may be found in the combination.
For most brands with any longevity in mind, the word mark is the more durable asset, and the symbol is worth its own filing if it is used independently on packaging, app icons or signage. Filing the full colour lockup alone is the weakest of the three positions, and the most common.
Colour, and what happens when the identity evolves
Filing a logo in black and white generally gives broader coverage across colourways than filing a single colour version. Where a specific colour is genuinely central to the brand, a colour filing alongside it is worth considering.
Identity systems change. A refreshed logo is usually a new mark requiring a new application, and the original registration only continues to protect what it depicts. Any rebrand should include an IP review as a work item, not as an afterthought, and old registrations should be maintained while the new mark works through examination.
Step 4: Copyright, and the Ownership Trap Most Businesses Fall Into
Copyright in Thailand arises automatically the moment an original work is created. No registration is needed for the right to exist, and Thailand's membership of the Berne Convention means a Thai work is protected across most of the world without further formality.
Automatic does not mean effortless. Two issues decide whether a brand's copyright is worth anything in practice.
Who owns the artwork
Thailand's default rules are counter-intuitive, and they are the opposite of what most business owners assume.
Under Section 9 of the Copyright Act, copyright in a work created by an employee in the course of employment vests in the employee, unless there is a written agreement to the contrary. The employer keeps a statutory right to communicate the work to the public in line with the purpose of the employment, but the ownership sits with the person who made it.
Under Section 10, copyright in a commissioned work vests in the person who commissioned it, unless the parties agree otherwise.
Read those together and the risk becomes clear. A company whose in-house designer created its logo may not own the copyright in it, because the default runs to the employee. A company that commissioned an agency generally does own it, because the default runs to the commissioner. The intuitive assumption, that a business owns whatever its staff produce, is the one the statute does not support.
Section 17 adds the mechanism that resolves this: an assignment of copyright, other than by inheritance, must be in writing and signed by both parties. Verbal understandings, invoices marked "full rights included", and email confirmations are not the instrument the statute describes.
Moral rights sit outside all of this. Under Section 18, an author keeps the right to be identified as the author and to object to distortion of the work that damages their reputation, and those rights are not transferred with ownership.
What this means in an agency relationship
For clients, the practical checklist is short and worth running on every brand asset already in use:
Is there a signed written assignment of copyright for the logo, the packaging artwork, the illustrations, the photography, the website design and the code? Does it name the works specifically? Was it signed by the party that actually holds the rights, which for an employee-created work means the employee, and for a subcontracted freelancer means the freelancer rather than the agency that hired them?
The chain matters. An agency can only assign what it holds. If a freelance illustrator was engaged without a written assignment and their work is embedded in the brand, the chain has a gap in it, and gaps surface at the least convenient moment, typically during due diligence for an investment round or a sale.
At AMS, clients own the full copyright in the final approved artwork once the engagement is paid in full, and the source files are handed over with it. Clients should expect a written assignment from any agency they work with, ask for it explicitly if it is not offered, and confirm that the chain runs back through any freelancers who contributed.
Recording copyright with the Department of Intellectual Property
Copyright recordation is optional in Thailand and worth doing anyway. The Department of Intellectual Property records copyright works, typically in around two to four months, and issues a certificate.
The certificate does not create the right. What it creates is evidence: a dated official record of what the work is and who claims it, which shifts the practical burden onto anyone disputing ownership. In an enforcement action, particularly a criminal one, being able to hand the authorities a certificate rather than a folder of design files and email threads changes how quickly a matter proceeds.
How long copyright lasts
The general term is the life of the author plus 50 years. For works owned by a juristic person, and for published works, the term is generally 50 years from creation or first publication.
Applied art is the exception, protected for 25 years from creation or publication. This matters for brands more than it sounds. Where a design is applied to a useful object, packaging, furniture, homeware, a product form, it may fall into the applied art category and carry a materially shorter term than a purely artistic work. Where a product's appearance is commercially central, design registration is the more reliable route, which brings us to the next layer.
Step 5: Product and Packaging Design, and the Deadline You Cannot Miss
If the shape of a bottle, the configuration of a product, or the ornamentation of a package carries commercial value, that appearance can be registered as an industrial design, granted in Thailand as a design patent under the Patent Act. That makes packaging design a legal decision as much as a creative one.
Design registration protects appearance rather than function or brand meaning. It sits alongside a trademark rather than replacing it.
The novelty trap
The requirement that catches brands out is novelty. A design must be new, which means it must not already form part of the state of the art at the filing date. That includes prior public use or knowledge in Thailand, prior publication anywhere, and earlier applications.
Public disclosure by the brand itself counts. A product photographed at a trade show, posted to Instagram, shown to a distributor without a confidentiality agreement, or listed on a marketplace before filing can destroy the novelty of its own design.
This is the single most important scheduling point in this article, and it is a branding-team problem rather than a legal-team problem, because the disclosure almost always happens in marketing. Design applications are filed before the launch campaign, not after it. Where a product must be shown to partners or manufacturers first, it is shown under a non-disclosure agreement.
Scope, term and timing
Each application covers one design. Multiple variants generally require separate applications. Drawings or photographs must show the design from all relevant views, including front, back, sides, top, bottom and perspective. Partial designs, protecting only a portion of a product, are not currently available in Thailand.
Registration involves substantive examination and commonly takes 12 to 18 months. The current term is up to 10 years from the filing date.
Reform is in progress
A draft revision of the Patent Act has been through public consultation and is working through the legislative process. As drafted, it would extend design protection to 15 years, introduce a creativity requirement in addition to novelty, merge the preliminary and substantive examination stages, shorten the opposition period, permit multiple related designs in one application, and prepare Thailand to join the Hague Agreement for international design registration.
None of that is in force yet, and the timing of enactment is not settled. For a brand planning a product launch in the next year or two, the practical implication is simply to ask counsel what the position is at the moment of filing rather than relying on either the current rules or the draft ones.
Step 6: Domains, Handles and the Digital Perimeter
Digital assets are the layer most often handled by whoever happened to build the website, and the layer most often found registered to a former employee, an ex-agency or a freelance developer.
.co.th requires substantiation. Thailand's country-code domains are not open registrations. A .co.th domain requires a registered company in Thailand, a Thai trademark registration, or equivalent qualification, together with supporting documents such as the company certificate or the trademark certificate, and the domain must correspond to the company name or the registered mark. A trademark registration is therefore a gateway to a .co.th domain for foreign brand owners, which is one more reason to file early.
Register in the brand's name, always. The registrant contact should be the company, with a company-controlled email address. Registrar accounts held under an agency's or an individual's personal account are a liability, and transferring them later is harder than setting them up correctly at the outset.
Defend the obvious variations. Common misspellings, the .com and .co.th pair, and the Thai-language variants where relevant. This is inexpensive relative to the cost of buying a domain back from a squatter who registered it after seeing the launch.
Claim handles before the campaign, not with it. Social handles, marketplace seller names and app store listings should be secured while the brand is still confidential.
Use marketplace brand registries. Once a mark is registered, platform brand-protection programmes become available and are the fastest practical route to removing counterfeit listings, usually faster than any court process.
Going Beyond Thailand
A Thai registration protects the mark in Thailand only. For brands that export, franchise, manufacture abroad or intend to, two mechanisms matter.
The Paris Convention priority window. A first filing in one member country creates a six-month window in which corresponding applications in other member countries can claim the original filing date. Used deliberately, it buys half a year to decide on international coverage without losing priority.
The Madrid Protocol. Thailand has been a member since 7 November 2017, so a Thai application or registration can serve as the basis for an international application designating other member countries through a single filing with WIPO, and foreign brand owners can designate Thailand in the same way.
Madrid is efficient for portfolios covering several countries. It is not automatically the right answer for every case. Each designated country still examines the mark under its own law, refusals are handled locally, and an international registration remains dependent on the basic application for its first five years, which means a problem with the home filing can affect the whole portfolio. National filings sometimes make more sense for a small number of key markets.
Two specific cases are worth raising with counsel early. Manufacturing in another country generally means filing there, because a mark can be registered against you in the country where your goods are actually made. And a franchise or distribution model needs the trademark position settled in each territory before the agreements are signed, not afterwards.
Enforcement: What Registration Actually Buys You
Registration is not the objective. Being able to stop someone is the objective, and registration is what makes stopping them practical.
Criminal prosecution is the main route in Thailand. For counterfeiting of a registered mark, criminal action is generally faster and more cost-effective than civil litigation, which is a meaningful difference from many Western jurisdictions where civil proceedings dominate. Penalties for counterfeiting a registered trademark run up to four years' imprisonment and a fine of up to 400,000 baht.
Investigation usually comes first. Serious enforcement starts with identifying the source of manufacture and the distribution channels rather than chasing individual sellers. Market monitoring, test purchases and supply-chain tracing are what turn a scattering of listings into an action against the party actually producing the goods, sometimes coordinated across several locations at once.
Online enforcement runs in parallel. Marketplace takedowns and platform brand registries handle volume quickly. They address symptoms rather than sources, so they work best alongside an investigation rather than instead of one.
Unregistered marks are not defenceless, but they are disadvantaged. Remedies exist for unregistered marks and for passing off, and genuinely well-known marks have protection against bad-faith registration. Every one of those routes requires proving something first, which costs time and money that a registration certificate would have made unnecessary.
Customs and border measures are available to registered rights holders and are worth setting up for brands with a counterfeiting exposure, particularly in cosmetics, apparel, accessories, food supplements and consumer electronics.
The Mistakes We See Most Often
Filing after the campaign launches. The launch tells competitors, distributors and squatters exactly what to file. For designs, it can also destroy novelty outright.
Registering the company name and assuming the brand is covered. Two different registers, two different rights.
Filing only the full-colour lockup. The narrowest of the available positions, and the one that ages worst.
No written copyright assignment. Particularly where an in-house designer or an unbriefed freelancer created the original artwork, where the statutory default may not sit where anyone assumes.
Specifying classes for today's business only. Extending a registration into new classes later means a new application and a new priority date, in a first-to-file system.
Letting a distributor or partner file "for convenience". Whoever is named on the application owns the mark.
Ignoring the Thai-language version of the name. Latin and Thai script are separate marks, and the Thai one is what most Thai consumers will search, say and type.
Missing the renewal. Ten years is long enough to lose track of, and there is no restoration procedure once the grace period passes.
A Sensible Sequence
For a brand being built or relaunched in Thailand, the order that reliably works:
Before creative development. Agree the classes the business needs now and within five years. Run preliminary knock-out searches on the naming shortlist.
During naming. Full clearance searches on the two or three surviving candidates, in Latin and Thai script. Rank the shortlist on legal risk alongside creative merit.
On name selection. File the word mark. Filing before the identity design begins costs nothing extra and secures the priority date at the earliest possible moment.
During identity design. Register the domains and secure the handles quietly. Keep the work confidential, particularly any product or packaging form.
On identity approval. File the device mark and any additional lockups. Execute the written copyright assignment covering all final artwork, checking the chain back through any freelancers. Record key copyright works with the Department of Intellectual Property.
Before any product or packaging is shown publicly. File the design applications. This deadline is absolute, and it is the one most often missed.
At launch. Enroll in marketplace brand registries once registrations issue. Set up monitoring.
Ongoing. Docket the renewal dates. Review the class coverage annually against what the business has actually started selling. Refresh the IP position whenever the identity changes.
Who Does What: How AMS and Ananda Work Together
The reason this article covers both sides is that the two disciplines fail in each other's blind spots.
AMS handles the brand itself. Brand strategy and positioning for the market. Naming and shortlisting with registrability in mind rather than as an afterthought. Identity design, including the decisions about lockups, colorways and asset structure that determine what can be filed and how broadly. Thai-language and cultural review of names and messaging. Packaging and product design, sequenced so that filings happen
Ananda handles the rights. Clearance searches and registrability opinions. Filing strategy across classes and jurisdictions, including whether to use single-class or multi-class applications and whether Madrid or national filings fit the portfolio. Prosecution, responses to objections, and oppositions. Copyright recordation and assignment documentation. Design patent filings. Renewal docketing. Investigation, enforcement, customs recordation and litigation when it is needed.
The handoffs matter more than either list. A naming shortlist reaches counsel before creative development, not after. A product design reaches counsel before the launch calendar is set. An identity refresh triggers an IP review rather than following one. When those three handoffs happen on time, brand protection stops being a legal cost and becomes a scheduling habit.
If you are building or relaunching a brand in Thailand, AMS can take the branding and design side, and Ananda Intellectual Property can take the filings and the enforcement position. Between them, most of what goes wrong in this article does not get the chance to.
Frequently Asked Questions
Do I need to register my trademark in Thailand if I already registered it in my home country?
Yes. Trademark rights are territorial. A registration in another country gives no protection in Thailand. Coverage in Thailand comes either from a national Thai application or from designating Thailand through the Madrid Protocol.
How long does trademark registration take in Thailand?
Commonly 12 to 18 months from filing to certificate where there is no objection and no opposition. Objections and oppositions extend it. Rights run from the filing date regardless, so priority is secured from day one.
Can I use my brand while the application is pending?
Yes, and most businesses do. Full enforcement remedies against infringers generally require the registration to have issued, so the pending period is a window of reduced protection rather than no protection.
I designed my own logo. Do I own it?
Probably, but check. If an employee created it in the course of employment, the default under Thai law is that the employee owns the copyright unless there is a written agreement saying otherwise. If an agency or freelancer was commissioned, the default is that the commissioning party owns it. Either way, a signed written assignment is what removes the doubt.
Is copyright registration necessary in Thailand?
Copyright exists automatically without registration. Recordation with the Department of Intellectual Property is optional, takes around two to four months, and provides a dated official certificate that makes ownership far easier to prove in a dispute or a criminal enforcement action.
What is the difference between trademarking a logo and copyrighting it?
A trademark protects the logo as a brand identifier for particular goods or services, stopping confusingly similar use by competitors. Copyright protects the artwork as a creative work, stopping reproduction of the drawing itself in any context. Most brands want both, and they are obtained separately.
Should I register my brand name in Thai script as well as English?
For any brand with a real Thai-language presence, generally yes. The two are treated as separate marks, and registering one does not protect the other. The Thai rendering is also the version most Thai consumers will search and type.
What happens if a distributor registers my brand in Thailand before I do?
It becomes their registration, and recovering it means challenging it on grounds such as bad faith or well-known mark status. That is slower, more expensive and less certain than having filed first. This is one of the most common ways foreign brands lose their name in a first-to-file market.
When do I need to file a design registration?
Before the product or packaging is shown publicly in any form, including social media, trade shows and marketplace listings. A design must be new at the filing date, and the brand's own disclosure can destroy that novelty.
How much does all of this cost?
It varies with the number of classes, the number of items specified, the scripts and marks filed, and the countries covered, so any single figure would be misleading. Official fees scale with the specification, and professional fees depend on scope. Ananda provides quotations against a defined filing plan, which is the right way to compare.
My brand is ten years old and never registered anything. Is it too late?
No, but it is more complicated. The first step is a search to establish what is already on the register in your categories, which determines whether you are filing into clear space or dealing with an existing conflict. Either way, the position is better addressed now than after someone else files.
Let’s keep in touch.
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