Registering a Trademark in Malta: A Step-by-Step Guide

Malta will let you register a trademark for €116.47 per class of goods or services — a fraction of what many business owners assume it costs. The catch is not the price. It is that the Comptroller of Industrial Property checks every application against existing marks, and a name that feels original to you may already be registered to someone else.

What counts as a registrable trademark

Under the Trademarks Act, Chapter 597 of the Laws of Malta, a trademark can consist of any sign capable of being represented in the register clearly and precisely enough to identify its subject matter. This is deliberately broad: words, including personal names, logos, letters, numerals, colours, the shape or packaging of goods, and even sounds can all in principle qualify, provided the sign is distinctive and can be captured in a way the register can reproduce and search.

The Act, which transposes EU Directive 2015/2436, is administered by the Industrial Property Registrations Directorate (IPRD) within Malta’s Commerce Department, headed by the Comptroller of Industrial Property. The Comptroller’s office conducts both a formal check — is the application complete and correctly filed — and a substantive examination assessing distinctiveness and potential conflicts with earlier registered or pending marks.

Not every sign qualifies simply by being submitted. Marks that are purely descriptive of the goods or services they cover, that have become generic terms in ordinary language, or that could mislead consumers about the nature, quality or origin of a product are refused on absolute grounds during examination, independent of whether any earlier conflicting mark exists. A business choosing a brand name that too closely describes what it actually sells — “Fresh Bakery” for a bakery, for instance — often faces a harder registration path than a more distinctive, invented name would, precisely because descriptiveness itself is a ground for refusal.

National, EU or international: which route fits your business

A Maltese national trademark, filed directly with the IPRD, only protects the mark within Malta. Because Malta is an EU member state, a registered European Union Trademark (EUTM) under Regulation (EU) 2017/1001 is automatically valid and enforceable in Malta as well, without a separate national filing — a single EUTM application can cover all EU member states at once. Malta is also a member of the Madrid Protocol, which allows an existing Maltese or EU registration to be extended to other member countries through a single international application rather than filing separately in each one.

There is also a middle path worth knowing about: filing nationally first, then using that Maltese registration as the basis for an international application under the Madrid Protocol once the business genuinely does expand abroad. This sequencing lets a business establish protection cheaply and quickly at home, then extend it deliberately, market by market, rather than committing to broader and more expensive protection before there is a concrete need for it.

The registration process, step by step

1. Choose the sign to register and the Nice Classification classes of goods or services it will cover.
2. File the application with the IPRD, including a clear representation of the mark and the list of goods or services.
3. The IPRD conducts a formal examination, checking the application is complete and correctly filed.
4. The IPRD conducts a substantive examination for distinctiveness and searches the National Trademark database for conflicting earlier marks.
5. If no absolute grounds for refusal are found, the application is published in the IP Online Journal, opening the opposition window.
6. If no opposition is filed, or any opposition is resolved in the applicant’s favour, the Comptroller registers the mark and issues a certificate.

The opposition window: why you are not safe on day one

Publication in the IP Online Journal is not the end of the process — it is an invitation for third parties to object. An earlier trademark owner who believes the new application conflicts with their own registered Maltese trademark, EU trademark, or a mark protected under an applicable international agreement, can file a formal opposition within the prescribed period after publication.

An opposition does not automatically defeat the application — the applicant can withdraw it, restrict the goods or services covered, reach an amicable agreement with the opposing party, or submit a formal counter-statement to contest the opposition. Only if an opposition is upheld does registration fail to proceed for the contested goods or services.

Fees and timeline in full

Why registering is not enough: the 5-year use rule

Registration in Malta does not require the mark to already be in commercial use — you can register defensively, ahead of an actual product launch. But that grace period is not indefinite. If a registered trademark is not put to genuine commercial use for more than five consecutive years after registration, it becomes vulnerable to cancellation for non-use, on application by anyone with an interest in freeing up the mark.

This rule exists specifically to prevent trademark registers from filling up with unused marks that block genuine businesses from registering names they actually intend to trade under. It also creates a practical opportunity: if a name you want is already registered but appears to have gone unused for several years — an abandoned brand, a defunct business — a non-use cancellation action can clear the way for your own application, rather than forcing you to abandon the name entirely simply because someone else registered it first.

Enforcing your trademark once registered

A registered trademark gives its owner exclusive rights to use the mark for the registered goods and services throughout Malta, and the statutory right to oppose later applications that conflict with it. Enforcement against infringement or counterfeiting is pursued through the IPRD’s procedures and, where necessary, the Maltese courts, with the Enforcement of Intellectual Property Rights (Regulation) Act, Chapter 488, providing additional enforcement mechanisms specifically for IP rights.

Registration alone does not police itself — the owner is generally responsible for monitoring the market and the IP Online Journal for potentially conflicting new applications, since the IPRD does not proactively notify existing owners every time a similar mark is filed by someone else. Many businesses use a watching service, either through the IPRD’s published journal or a private trademark agent, precisely to catch conflicting applications early enough to file an opposition within the available window, rather than discovering a conflict only after a competing mark has already been registered.

A worked example

Consider a Sliema-based coffee roastery launching under a new brand name, planning to sell only within Malta for the foreseeable future. The owner files a national Maltese trademark application covering one class — roasted coffee and related goods — paying the €116.47 fee. The IPRD’s formal and substantive examination finds no identical or confusingly similar earlier mark, and the application is published for opposition.

No opposition is filed within the window, and the mark proceeds to registration, giving the roastery exclusive rights to the name for coffee-related goods in Malta for ten years, renewable indefinitely. Had the owner instead filed an EU trademark “to be safe,” the same application would have been exposed to opposition from any conflicting mark registered anywhere in the EU — a meaningfully higher risk and cost for a business with no actual plans to trade outside Malta.

Three years later, the same roastery decides to start supplying cafés in Sicily and southern Italy. At this point, the earlier national registration becomes the foundation for an international application under the Madrid Protocol, extended specifically to Italy rather than the entire EU. The cost and complexity of that expansion is proportionate to where the business has actually grown, rather than having been paid for years earlier against a market the business was never certain it would enter.

Frequently asked questions

Conclusion

Most guides to trademark registration in Malta focus on the process, since the process itself is genuinely simple and affordable. The more consequential decision happens before the application is even filed: whether a national, EU or international registration actually matches your business’s real trading footprint. Overinsuring with an EU-wide filing when your market is purely local does not just cost more — it exposes your application to a wider field of potential opponents than a business trading only in Malta will ever actually need to worry about.

The second decision that matters just as much, and gets far less attention, is choosing a genuinely distinctive name in the first place. A descriptive or generic-sounding name might feel safe and easy to market, but it is precisely the kind of mark examiners are most likely to refuse, or that later proves easiest for a competitor to challenge. The businesses that get the most lasting value out of Malta’s relatively low registration cost are usually the ones that invested a little more thought into distinctiveness before filing, not the ones that filed the cheapest, most obvious name first.

This article is for general information only and does not constitute legal advice. Trademark strategy depends on your specific business and markets; consult a licensed lawyer or trademark agent before filing.