Trademark Act Takes Effect as Registration Portal Awaits Regulations
Law No. 19/2025 came into force on 11 November, a year after it was gazetted, but businesses cannot apply to register a trademark until regulations setting out procedures and fees are issued.
The News
The Maldives' Trademark Act (Law No. 19/2025) took effect on Wednesday, 11 November, creating the country's first legal system for registering trademarks. Businesses cannot file applications yet, because the regulations that will set out forms, procedures and fees have not been issued.
The Ministry of Economic Development, Transport and Trade announced on X that evening that the Act had "officially entered into force". It said the system would be run by the Maldives Intellectual Property Office, and that the application portal would open after the Trademark Regulations are issued. It did not give a date for either.
Under Section 50 of the Act, all regulations it requires must be made and published in the Government Gazette within six months of the Act taking effect. The ministry makes most of them; some are left to the Registrar of Intellectual Property and the Customs Service.
Know More
Under the Act, exclusive rights in a trademark arise on registration, and a mark goes to the first party to file a valid application or to establish a right of priority. The registration fee will be set in the regulations.
Applicants who have already filed for the same mark in a member country of the Paris Convention or the World Trade Organization can claim priority for six months from that earlier filing. The World Intellectual Property Organization's profile of the Maldives does not list it as a party to the Paris Convention or the Madrid system for international trademarks. It shows the Maldives as a member of the WTO's intellectual property agreement since 1995 and a party to the Berne Convention on copyright since 22 November 2025.
Published applications can be opposed within three months. A registration lasts 10 years and can be renewed for further 10-year terms, with a six-month grace period on payment of an extra fee.
Section 49 says trademarks registered before the Act took effect must be submitted for registration within 12 months, under procedures to be set in the regulations. After that, their earlier registration is treated as void.
The Act also lets rights holders ask the Maldives Customs Service to hold back imported goods, and provides for goods that infringe a trademark to be destroyed. Counterfeiting a mark, or trading in, importing or exporting counterfeit goods on a commercial scale, is a criminal offence carrying a fine of between MVR 100,000 and MVR 2 million.
Step Back
Parliament passed the bill on 10 November 2025. President Mohamed Muizzu ratified it the next day, and it was published in the Government Gazette the same evening. Section 51 says the Act comes into force 12 months after it is passed, ratified and gazetted.
The Maldives Intellectual Property Office was set up under a separate law. The President ratified the Maldives Intellectual Property Office Act (Act No. 13/2025) on 21 August 2025 and established the office on 1 January 2026, when that Act took effect. The office sits under the trade ministry, and its head is the Registrar of Intellectual Property.
The President's Office's unofficial English translation of the Presidential Address on 5 February 2026 said "the Trademark Act has come into force". Under its own commencement clause, the Act took effect nine months later.
The ministry had scheduled an awareness session on the trademark system for micro, small and medium enterprises on 9 November, with the World Intellectual Property Organization and the Maldives Intellectual Property Office.
