Effective as of January 3, 2023, Thailand’s Department of Intellectual Property (the “DIP”) issued a Notification regarding the First Notification of the Trademark Examination Result in the Case of Necessity for Urgent Use of the Trademarks of 2023 (the “Notification”). This Notification establishes a formal procedure for expedited examination under which an applicant shall receive an examination result within 4 months from the filing date. This fast-track examination has proved to be practically possible as the Trademark Office has so far accepted approximately 10 applications for examination under this procedure (as of February 2023).

To be eligible for this procedure, the application shall meet the following requirements:

1. The application together with the request and supporting evidence as listed below shall be filed simultaneously online;
   
2. The mark shall be a letter/word/device or combination thereof (not including a combination of color, three dimensional, or sound mark) and applied for protection as a trademark or service mark (not including certificate mark and collective mark);
   
3. The application shall cover only one class and not more than 10 items of goods and services, which must be among the samples of acceptable terms in accordance with the Trademark Office’s guideline on the official website;
   
4. The applicant shall submit proof of the necessity for urgent use of the mark, e.g. a marketing plan;
   
5. The applicant shall submit a search result conducted from certain databases e.g., the Thai Trademark Office’s online database, TMview, and WIPO Global Brand Database.

Upon receipt of the above, the examiner shall inform the applicant in 15 days whether the application is eligible under this Notification or not. If eligible, the examiner will then notify the applicant of the examination result (which shall be subject to cancellation under certain circumstances) within 4 months.

However, as there is no further explanation from the Trademark Office on the requirements regarding proof of urgency (4) and search results (5), the examiner will use his/her own discretion in assessing such evidence on a case-by-case basis. For goods and services in (3), since the Trademark Office’s guideline are regularly updated, some acceptable terms may be removed at a later stage after the application is filed. As a result, the application may become ineligible.

Another option with more flexible requirements is filing through the fast-track examination procedure pursuant to the Notification on the First Notification of the Trademark Examination Result in Case of Urgency of 2021. This Notification allows designating as many as 50 items of goods/services with no limitation to only one class, but such items must be those listed in the Trademark Office’s guideline. Additionally, under this procedure, the applicant is not required to submit a request form or evidence of urgency or to take any additional action. If found eligible during preliminary review, the application will be automatically accepted for this procedure and the result will be known within 6 months.

It should be noted that if the application does not comply with the requirements under either of the above Notifications, the application will be examined as per normal procedures. In addition, these Notifications are not applicable to applications under the Madrid system.

Since the normal, not expedited, examination procedures can be time consuming (10-12 months), the applicant may consider either of the above fast-track procedures, especially in cases where the list of goods and services is not too extensive or complicated.