SPA

What is Search and preliminary advice?: Ask our examiners to search the register and provide advice about your business name or brands eligibility for registration.

You can read more about the Search and Preliminary Advice service here.

How do I apply?

Get an igovt logon (or logon with your existing igovt logon)
Become an IPONZ registered user
Have your desired trade mark ready: image, word(s), or a combination of word(s) and image
Have a list of your goods and/or services ready

SPA details

Search and Preliminary Advice service

Welcome to IPONZ Search and Preliminary Advice, the easy way to find out if your mark can be registered!

By using our Search and Preliminary Advice (S&PA) service you can find out if your business name, brand or logo is eligible for registration as a trade mark before incurring the cost of filing your trade mark application.

Benefits

For a small fee of NZ$80.00 exclusive GST, a trade mark examiner will:

search the New Zealand trade mark register to check that your desired mark (business name, brand or logo) is not too similar to other marks already on the register; and
provide preliminary advice about whether your mark meets key eligibility criteria under the Trade Marks Act.

Keep it simple

If your desired mark is a business name or brand, we suggest that you start by requesting a search and preliminary advice for the mark as plain words. If IPONZ tells you your mark is not “distinctive” enough for registration, you could then consider requesting another search and preliminary advice for a stylised logo version of your desired mark. A logo with a reasonable amount of stylisation has a better chance of being seen as more distinctive, and eligible for registration.

It is important to note that a plain word mark is generally seen as preferable because it protects your business name or brand no matter how the words are presented, whereas a logo only protects the words in their stylised form.

It’s easy…

Now for the best part – if the Examiner’s S&PA report indicates that your business name or logo is eligible for registration our system makes it easy to convert your S&PA into a trade mark application.