What does monitoring of a registered trade mark cost?
Trade mark monitoring is not a fixed fee with one price for everyone. The costs depend on how many registers are scanned, how many classes and countries your mark covers, and how often checks are performed. Most providers work with an annual subscription, and that amount varies per mark, not just per provider.
What is certain: monitoring is an ongoing service, not a one-off action. A mark registered today can be challenged tomorrow by a similar application. Without monitoring, you often won't notice this within the time window in which you can still take action.
Where the amount comes from
The price of monitoring is made up of a few building blocks. First, the number of registers that are searched: the Benelux register only, the EU register only, or both plus international registers via WIPO. The broader the scan, the more new applications come through and the more assessment work involved.
Second, the number of classes in which your mark is registered. A mark in two classes produces fewer potential hits than a mark in eight classes, and monitoring scales accordingly.
Third, the frequency: weekly, monthly, or per publication round of the register. The more often it is checked, the sooner a conflict is noticed, but that also demands more from the system or the person assessing the hits.
What monitoring is and is not
Monitoring alerts you. It is not a guarantee that every threat will be spotted in time, and certainly not a guarantee that any opposition will succeed. The service points to a new application that appears similar to your mark, so that you — or a trade mark representative — can assess whether action is needed within the opposition period.
This distinction is important when assessing the price. A cheap monitoring service that reports nothing is not necessarily good value; a service that spots a real threat in time can save a registration you would otherwise lose without a fight.
Own monitoring versus a subscription
There is an alternative to a paid subscription: periodically searching the public registers yourself, such as the Benelux register, EUIPO eSearch or TMview. This is free, but requires discipline and knowledge of what counts as confusingly similar and what does not. Those who want to do this systematically must manually return at regular intervals — a missed month is a missed opportunity.
Monitoring costs separate from registration costs
It is important to distinguish: monitoring costs are separate from the official fees you pay to the Benelux Office or EUIPO for the application itself, and separate from any service fee for guidance during filing. Monitoring is a recurring expense that begins once the mark is registered and only stops if you cancel or the mark lapses.
When estimating the total cost of a mark, it is worth looking at the three items separately: the one-off application costs, the service fee for guidance, and the subscription for monitoring and the renewal reminder. An overview of how these items relate to each other can be found on the pricing page.
How class selection affects the price
Because the classes partly determine how much needs to be monitored, it is worth taking a close look at which classes are really necessary when filing. Choosing too many classes "to be safe" drives up both application costs and monitoring costs, without always providing extra protection. If you are unsure about the right classes, you can have this checked for free first before the application is filed.
File it yourself, but with guidance
With guided self-filing, you submit the application yourself via your own account at the BOIP or EUIPO; the guiding party is then not a representative and does not need your login credentials. This also applies to monitoring: because the mark is registered in your own name and account, you can arrange monitoring with any provider without being dependent on who filed the application. How that guidance works in detail and where the data for the scan comes from is described on this page.
In brief
There is no fixed amount for trade mark monitoring, because the price moves with the number of registers, classes and the frequency of checks. What is certain is that monitoring is a recurring cost item that is separate from the one-off application costs, and its value lies in promptly alerting you to a conflict within the opposition period — not in a guarantee that nothing will ever go wrong. For specific questions about your own situation, a trade mark attorney or the relevant supervisory authority is the right contact point; further background is also in the list of frequently asked questions.
Would you like to know how your mark stands now and which classes are relevant for you? Do the free trade mark check or read on in the knowledge base on marcai.eu.