Trademark Registration with SAIP: Fees, Nice Classification, Timeline and the Opposition Window

Quick answer

To register a trademark in Saudi Arabia, you file an application with the Saudi Authority for Intellectual Property (“SAIP”) through its e-services portal, selecting goods or services under the Nice Classification. Official government fees come to SAR 6,500 per class (SAR 1,000 application + SAR 500 publication + SAR 5,000 registration and certificate issuance), before professional fees. The examining authority must decide on the application within 90 days of filing. Once accepted, the mark is published in SAIP’s trademark gazette, and a 60-day opposition window opens. Protection lasts 10 years from the filing date, counted in Saudi Arabia on the Hijri calendar, so roughly 9 years and 8 months in Gregorian terms. Trademarks are renewable indefinitely. Fees, procedures, and timelines are stated as of the time of writing (September 2026).

The law that actually applies

Trademarks in Saudi Arabia are governed by the Trademarks Law of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries and its Implementing Regulations, given effect in the Kingdom by Royal Decree No. M/51 dated 26/7/1435H (May 25, 2014) and applied nationally through SAIP. The governing instruments are published in SAIP’s systems and regulations library and on WIPO Lex, the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) legal database.

Two points about that framework are worth understanding before you file.

It is a shared law and a shared set of regulations, but not a shared registration. Each GCC state examines, publishes, and registers separately, through its own competent body. Filing in Saudi Arabia gives you rights in Saudi Arabia; the shared text means the procedure will look familiar in Kuwait or Oman, not that one filing covers them.

And the Arabic text governs. English translations of the Law and the Regulations are published for convenience, but the instruments themselves state that the Arabic version prevails in the event of any conflict. Where a deadline or a requirement carries real consequence, the Arabic text is the one to check.

Article references throughout this guide are to the GCC Trademark Law (the “Law”) and its Implementing Regulations (the “Regulations”).

Who administers trademarks in Saudi Arabia?

SAIP is the body responsible for trademark examination, publication, and opposition proceedings in the Kingdom, and, since August 2021, for administrative enforcement — inspections and seizures of counterfeit goods, taken over from the Ministry of Commerce. Civil and criminal remedies run through other channels — the customs authority at the border, and the competent courts, as set out below. It maintains the Trademarks Register, in which every mark, owner, address, description of goods or services, and every subsequent transfer, license, mortgage, renewal, or cancellation is recorded. Any person with an interest may inspect the Register and obtain a certified extract (Law, Art. 6).

The Kingdom applies a first-to-file principle: rights follow the first party to file, not necessarily the first to use the mark commercially. One practical consequence follows immediately.

Delaying a filing while you test a brand in the market is a real risk. A competitor, distributor, or opportunistic filer who registers first holds the prior right, and unwinding that position is slower and more expensive than filing early.

First-to-file is not absolute, though, and the qualification matters. A registrant in good faith is treated as the owner of the mark, and ownership can no longer be disputed once the mark has been registered and used for at least five years without a legal challenge. Inside that five-year window, a party who can show earlier use may ask the competent court to cancel the registration — unless the earlier user expressly or tacitly consented to the registrant’s use (Law, Art. 7). Earlier use is therefore worth documenting, and a five-year clock is worth docketing, on both sides of that provision.

Separately, all filings since December 19, 2023 are processed through SAIP’s Unified Intellectual Property Platform at eservices.saip.gov.sa. Marks registered before that date remain accessible through the legacy trademark portal. Portfolio managers holding older Saudi registrations should confirm which system each asset sits in before a renewal deadline approaches.

Foreign applicants without a Saudi presence must file through a licensed local IP agent recorded in SAIP’s agent registry — the Regulations require the agent to be entered in the register of trademark registration agents (Regulations, Art. 2). Eligibility to register extends to GCC natural and legal persons carrying on a commercial, industrial, handicraft, or services activity, foreign nationals resident in a GCC state and authorized to carry on such an activity, nationals or residents of any state party to a multilateral convention to which a GCC state belongs, and public bodies (Law, Art. 5).

What can be registered — and what cannot

The Law defines a trademark broadly: any distinctive form taken by names, words, signatures, letters, figures, numbers, drawings, symbols, titles, seals, pictures, engravings, packaging, figurative elements, shapes, a color or combination of colors, or any combination of these, used to distinguish the goods or services of one enterprise from another, or to indicate that inspection or quality control has been carried out (Law, Art. 2).

Sound and smell marks are expressly registrable. The Law recognizes both, and the Regulations set the filing format: a sound mark is submitted as a musical notation or a written description, a scent mark as a written description (Law, Art. 2; Regulations, Art. 4). Non-traditional marks are rarely part of a Saudi filing strategy, and the framework leaves room for them.

Article 3 of the Law then excludes fifteen categories from registration. The ones that most often catch commercial filings:

• Marks with no distinctive character, or that consist only of the customary trade designation for the goods or services, or of ordinary depictions of them.
• Expressions or images contrary to public morals or public order, and marks identical or similar to symbols of a purely religious character.
• State emblems, flags, military and honorary insignia, national decorations, and currency of any GCC or foreign state, of Arab or international organizations, and imitations of any of these; likewise the Red Crescent and Red Cross emblems.
• Geographical names and indications whose use would create confusion as to the origin or source of the goods or services.
• The name, title, portrait, or emblem of a third party, unless that person or their heirs consent in advance.
• Marks liable to mislead the public, or carrying false statements about the origin, source, or other characteristics of the goods or services, and marks containing a fictitious, imitated, or forged trade name.
• Marks identical or similar to a mark already filed or registered by another party for the same or related goods or services, where use would suggest a link with the earlier owner or damage their interests.
• Reproductions, imitations, or translations of a well-known mark, whether for similar goods or — where use would suggest a connection and risk harming the owner’s interests — for dissimilar ones.
• Words and expressions such as “registered,” “registered design,” “copyright,” “concession,” or their equivalents.

The remaining grounds under Article 3 — marks owned by persons with whom dealing is prohibited by a Competent Authority resolution, honorary titles or degrees the applicant cannot show entitlement to, and marks whose registration for certain goods or services would undervalue other goods or services distinguished by the mark — arise far less often in commercial filings, but remain part of the same statutory list.

Well-known marks get separate treatment. A mark whose reputation extends beyond the country of registration cannot be registered by anyone other than its owner, or without the owner’s express consent, for identical or similar goods and services. Fame is assessed by reference to public awareness of the mark in the relevant sector, the extent of its promotion, the length of its registration or use, the number of countries in which it is registered or known, and its value and influence in promoting the goods or services it distinguishes (Law, Art. 4).

Nice Classification: the decision that defines your protection

Saudi Arabia applies the Nice Classification — the WIPO system dividing goods and services into 45 classes: Classes 1 to 34 for goods, Classes 35 to 45 for services. The Regulations require the classification to be applied as amended, so filings follow the edition and annual version in force (Regulations, Art. 2). SAIP has applied the 12th edition since November 2023. WIPO’s 13th edition (NCL 13-2026) took effect on January 1, 2026 and moved a number of commercially significant terms — eyeglasses and contact lenses from Class 9 to Class 10, essential oils split by purpose, artificial intelligence as a service added to Class 42. SAIP has historically adopted new editions on a lag, and had not announced the 13th edition at the time of writing, so confirm which edition the portal is running before you finalize a specification. The full list of class headings and explanatory notes is published by WIPO at nclpub.wipo.int.

Four rules matter more than most guides acknowledge.

Saudi Arabia operates a single-class filing system in practice. The Regulations state that an application is limited to one class, while allowing multiple classes in a single application where the competent authority approves. Saudi practice is one class per application, with its own set of fees. A company protecting a brand across clothing (Class 25), retail services (Class 35), and restaurant services (Class 43) is filing three applications and paying three times the government fees. Class selection is therefore a budget decision as much as a legal one — and the most common source of avoidable cost in a Saudi filing program.

Classes are an administrative index, not a legal test of similarity. The Law is explicit: goods or services are not similar merely because they sit in the same class, and not different merely because they sit in different classes (Law, Art. 9). Examiners and opponents assess conflict on the commercial reality of the goods and services, not the class number. A registration in the right class is not, by itself, a defense against a related-goods objection.

Terms must be selected from SAIP’s predefined list. Applicants choose goods and services from the portal’s controlled vocabulary and cannot rewrite the nomenclature. The portal also stopped accepting class headings: you select specific terms, or the whole list for a class. Specifications drafted for the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) or the European Union Intellectual Property Office (EUIPO), where bespoke wording is routine, will need reworking before they can be filed in the Kingdom.

Arabic matters at the examination stage. Applications are filed in Arabic, and examiners assess similarity both visually and phonetically across Arabic and Latin scripts. Where a mark contains words in a foreign language, the Regulations require a certified Arabic translation and a statement of how the mark is pronounced (Regulations, Art. 4) — the transliteration is part of the record the examiner works from. A mark that reads as distinctive in English can be descriptive, confusingly similar to a prior right, or culturally unacceptable once transliterated. Clearance searching that covers only the Latin-script form of a mark is incomplete for this jurisdiction.

What goes into the application

The Regulations set out exactly what an application must contain and what must be attached to it. Getting this right at filing avoids a formalities objection and the 90-day clock that comes with it.

The application itself must state the representation of the mark, the applicant’s name, address, and nationality (and, for a legal person, its name and address), a precise description of the mark, the goods or services and their class, any priority date, number, and country, and the signature of the applicant or authorized agent (Regulations, Art. 3).

Attachments (Regulations, Art. 4):

• Four representations of the mark matching the one in the application.
• Where an agent files, a copy of the power of attorney checked against the original — duly notarized, legalized, and translated into Arabic.
• Evidence of practicing the relevant profession or activity.
• Proof of payment of the prescribed fee.
• For marks containing foreign-language wording, a certified Arabic translation and a note on pronunciation.
• For sound marks, a musical notation or written description; for scent marks, a written description.

Priority claims run on their own clock. An applicant relying on an earlier application filed in a state party to a multilateral convention to which a GCC state belongs must attach a declaration of the date, number, and country of the earlier filing, together with a copy and an Arabic translation, within six months of the earlier filing — otherwise the right to claim priority lapses. Original priority documents may follow within three months of the Saudi filing date (Law, Art. 11; Regulations, Art. 5).

One procedural quirk worth knowing: where two or more parties apply for the same or closely similar marks in the same class at the same time, all the applications are suspended until one party produces an attested waiver in favor of another, or a final judgment resolves the dispute (Law, Art. 10).

SAIP trademark fees

Official fees published on SAIP’s trademark registration service page (Arabic version), per class — and matching the fee schedule annexed to the Implementing Regulations:

Renewal fees, published on SAIP’s trademark renewal service page, per class:

The annexed schedule also prices the events that follow registration — the ones that tend to be missing from a filing budget:

Two things to budget beyond the tables. Licensed agent or law firm fees are separate and typically add several thousand riyals per class depending on complexity. And an opposition or a substantive office action introduces further cost that is difficult to forecast at filing.

All figures above are current as of the date of publication of this article. Fee schedules change, and each GCC member state may set fees of its own beyond the annexed schedule (Regulations, Art. 40). Always confirm the latest figures against SAIP’s official service pages linked above before committing a budget or advising a client.

Timeline: what actually happens, and when

The Law requires the competent authority to decide on a compliant application within 90 days of submission (Law, Art. 12; Regulations, Art. 6). In practice, the full path from filing to certificate typically runs three to six months where no opposition is filed, and can extend to a year or more where one is.

1. Clearance search. Not a formal requirement, but the cheapest point at which to discover a conflict. SAIP maintains a public IP search engine, and a preliminary examination request is available as a paid service.

2. Filing. Submitted through the SAIP portal with the mark representation, applicant details, class, and the selected goods or services. An invoice for the consideration fee is issued; the application is examined only once it is paid.

3. Examination. SAIP assesses formal and substantive requirements and searches for prior conflicting marks. One of three outcomes follows: acceptance; acceptance conditional on restrictions or modifications imposed to distinguish the mark from an earlier one; or refusal, which must be notified in writing with reasons (Law, Art. 12).

4. Response to conditions. Where amendments or further documents are required, the applicant has 90 days from notification to comply. Miss it and the application is deemed abandoned. This deadline is a frequent cause of lost applications in portfolios managed by spreadsheet.

5. Publication. Once accepted, the publication cost must be paid within 30 days of notification of acceptance — again, on pain of the application being treated as waived (Regulations, Art. 10). The mark is then published in the SAIP gazette and the opposition window opens.

6. Opposition window. 60 days from publication. See below.

7. Final payment and certificate. Acceptance becomes final 60 days after publication if no objection is filed, or on a final court ruling. The registration fee must then be paid within 30 days of that final decision, and the certificate is issued electronically (Regulations, Art. 14).

Registration takes effect from the date the application was filed, not the date the certificate issues (Law, Art. 17; Regulations, Art. 15). The certificate records the registration number, the filing, registration, and expiry dates, any priority claim, the owner’s details, a representation of the mark, and the goods or services and their class.

Statutory deadlines at a glance

The 60-day opposition window

Any interested party may oppose a published application within 60 days of publication, by filing a reasoned objection on the prescribed form and paying the objection fee (Law, Art. 14; Regulations, Art. 12). The Law provides no mechanism to extend that period.

What follows is an administrative proceeding before SAIP rather than a court action. The authority notifies the applicant with a copy of the objection within 30 days of its submission. The applicant then has 60 days to file a written reply — and an application that goes unanswered is treated as waived. An opposition that is ignored does not simply fail; it ends the application.

Either party may request a hearing, on payment of the prescribed fee, at which the applicant and the opponent — or one of them — are heard and supporting evidence is submitted. SAIP then issues a reasoned decision within 90 days of the hearing, accepting or rejecting the registration and imposing any restrictions or conditions it considers necessary (Law, Art. 15; Regulations, Art. 13).

Common grounds include similarity to a prior registered mark, likelihood of consumer confusion, conflict with a well-known mark, lack of distinctiveness, and conflict with public order or religious sensitivities — in each case anchored in the exclusions at Article 3 of the Law.

Appeals

The route depends on what is being appealed.

A refusal, or an acceptance made conditional on restrictions, may be challenged before the Grievance Committee — a committee constituted by decision of the competent minister — within 60 days of notification. The Committee’s decision is notified within 30 days of issuance, and may in turn be appealed to the competent court within a further 60 days (Law, Art. 13; Regulations, Arts. 7–9).

A decision on an opposition goes to the competent court directly, within 30 days of notification. Appealing a decision that accepted a registration does not suspend the registration procedures unless the court orders otherwise (Law, Art. 15) — so a challenge does not, by itself, stop the mark from proceeding onto the Register.

The practical implication for brand owners is that the opposition window is a two-way instrument. It is the mechanism through which your application can be challenged — and the mechanism through which you challenge a conflicting third-party filing before it registers. Capturing that requires watching the SAIP gazette continuously rather than reacting once a competing mark is already on the register, at which point cancellation through the courts is the only remaining route.

After registration: the Hijri calendar trap

The Law sets the protection period at 10 years from the filing date, renewable for successive terms of the same length (Law, Art. 20). Saudi Arabia counts those years on the Hijri calendar — approximately 9 years and 8 months in Gregorian terms, because the Hijri year is around 11 days shorter.

This is the single most common docketing error in Saudi portfolios managed from outside the region. A renewal date calculated on a Gregorian ten-year cycle falls roughly four months after the mark has already expired.

Renewal itself is straightforward when it is on time. An application filed in the final twelve Hijri months of protection is approved on formalities alone: there is no fresh examination, and third parties cannot object to a renewal (Law, Art. 20; Regulations, Arts. 17–18). A six-month grace period — also counted on the Hijri calendar — follows expiry at a higher fee. Once that grace period closes without a renewal application, the authority strikes the mark from the Register, and the mark must be filed again as a new application — losing its original priority date.

Two further exposures run through the life of a registration.

Non-use for five consecutive years. Any interested party may ask the competent court to cancel a registration if the mark has not been seriously used for five successive years — unless the owner proves the non-use was due to a reason beyond his control (Law, Art. 24). Defensive filings across classes a business does not actually trade in carry this exposure, and evidence of genuine use is the only answer to it. Keeping dated proof of use per class, per year, is a records problem before it is a legal one.

A canceled mark is not immediately available again. Once struck off, a mark cannot be re-registered by a third party for the same or similar goods or services until three years have passed, unless a court judgment sets a shorter period (Law, Art. 25). That works both ways: it protects an owner who has lost a registration, and it delays a competitor hoping to pick up a lapsed mark.

Post-registration changes are also formal acts. The owner may apply to add to or amend the mark provided the change does not substantially affect its identity, and may record changes of name, address, occupation, nationality, or agent, or delete goods and services from the specification — each on the prescribed form, on payment of the fee, with publication and an entry in the Register (Law, Art. 18; Regulations, Art. 16).

Licensing, assignment, and security interests

A registered trademark is a transactable asset, and the Law is specific about the formalities.

Assignment. A mark may be transferred in whole or in part, with or without consideration, and may be mortgaged or attached, together with the business or undertaking whose goods or services it distinguishes, unless otherwise agreed. It may also pass by inheritance, will, or gift. In every case, a transfer, mortgage, or attachment has no effect against third parties until it is recorded in the Trademarks Register and published (Law, Art. 27). An unrecorded assignment is a gap that surfaces at the worst possible moment — in due diligence, in an enforcement action, or at renewal, when the party paying is not the party on the Register.

Transfer of a business carries with it the marks registered in the transferor’s name that are closely connected to it, unless the parties agree otherwise (Law, Art. 28).

Licensing. The owner may license any natural or legal person to use the mark for all or part of the registered goods or services, may license several parties, and may continue using the mark itself unless otherwise agreed. A license contract must be in writing to be valid; where the original is not in Arabic, the Regulations require it to be notarized, certified, and translated. A license term cannot exceed the remaining protection period of the mark (Law, Arts. 29, 31; Regulations, Art. 30).

Recording a license is optional under the Law — but recordal has consequences. Where a license is recorded in the Register, the owner cannot cancel the registration without the licensee’s written consent unless the licensee has expressly waived that right (Law, Art. 23). Canceling a license recordal requires notice to the other party, who may take the matter to court within 30 days; the cancellation is suspended in the meantime (Law, Art. 33; Regulations, Art. 33).

Permitted license restrictions are limited to those flowing from the rights the registration confers or necessary to preserve them — in practice, the territory and period of use, quality-control conditions, and obligations on the licensee to avoid conduct that harms the mark (Law, Art. 30). A licensee may not assign the license or grant sub-licenses unless the contract says otherwise (Law, Art. 32).

Enforcement once the mark is registered

Registration gives the owner an exclusive right to use the mark and to stop others using an identical or similar sign — including a geographical indication — in trade for related goods or services where confusion is likely. Where the same or a similar mark is used on goods similar to those it is registered for, confusion is presumed (Law, Art. 17). Three enforcement routes follow from that.

Customs suspension. A rights holder with reasonable grounds to believe that counterfeit, forged, or confusingly similar goods are being imported may apply in writing to the customs authority to suspend release. The authority must decide within seven days, and an accepted application runs for one year or the remaining protection period, whichever is shorter. Customs may also act on its own initiative against imported, transit, or export-bound goods. Once release is suspended, the importer and the rights holder are notified, and the rights holder has ten working days to file substantive proceedings, extendable by up to ten more, or the suspension lapses. Removing an unlawfully applied mark is never sufficient to release goods into commerce (Law, Art. 38). The provisions do not reach small non-commercial quantities in travelers’ luggage or small packages, or goods put on the market of the exporting country by the rights holder or with consent (Law, Art. 39).

Precautionary measures. Facing an actual or imminent infringement, the owner may petition the competent court for measures including a detailed description of the infringement and the goods, materials, and tools involved; attachment of those items and of the proceeds of the infringement; preventing infringing goods from entering commercial channels or being exported; and halting the infringement. The court decides within ten days, may act without notifying the other party where delay risks irreparable harm or destruction of evidence, and may require a bond. Substantive proceedings must follow within twenty days, or the order is canceled at the defendant’s request (Law, Art. 40).

Damages and penalties. A court may award compensation covering the harm suffered and the profits the infringer earned, order seizure, require the infringer to disclose everyone involved in production and distribution, and order the destruction of counterfeit goods and the tools used to make them (Law, Art. 41). Criminal penalties run to imprisonment of one month to three years and/or a fine of SAR 5,000 to SAR 1,000,000 for counterfeiting or imitating a registered mark or using a counterfeit mark in bad faith, and to imprisonment of one month to one year and/or a fine of SAR 1,000 to SAR 100,000 for selling or holding goods bearing such marks, and for related offenses. A repeat offense within three years attracts double the maximum penalty, closure of the business for fifteen days to six months, and publication of the judgment at the offender’s expense (Law, Arts. 42–43).

Temporary protection at exhibitions

Marks displayed on goods at official or officially recognized national and international exhibitions held in the Kingdom can be given provisional protection for the duration of the exhibition, provided they meet the registration requirements (Law, Art. 21).

The mechanism is procedural and time-bound. The owner notifies SAIP of the intention to exhibit at least one month before the exhibition opens, on the prescribed form, with four representations of the mark and proof of the fee. The certificate issued covers a period of up to six months from the opening date, and only exhibitions designated by official decision qualify (Regulations, Arts. 19–22). For companies launching a product at a Riyadh trade event ahead of a national filing, that one-month lead time is the operative deadline.

What changes on October 8, 2026: the Madrid Protocol

Saudi Arabia deposited its instrument of accession to the Madrid Protocol on July 8, 2026, and, as WIPO has confirmed, the Protocol enters into force for the Kingdom on October 8, 2026 (WIPO Information Notice No. 35/2026). The Kingdom becomes the 117th contracting party to the Protocol, taking the Madrid System’s reach to 133 countries.

From that date, trademark owners can designate Saudi Arabia in a new international application through the Madrid System, or extend an existing international registration to the Kingdom through a subsequent designation, rather than filing nationally with SAIP. Saudi applicants gain the reciprocal ability to seek protection across other Madrid members from a single application. Five of the six GCC states — Bahrain, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and the UAE — will be reachable through the system, leaving Kuwait the only GCC member outside it.

Four declarations Saudi Arabia has made are worth noting before planning around this:

• The window for SAIP to notify a provisional refusal is extended from 12 to 18 months.
• Where a refusal results from an opposition, it may be notified after the 18-month period expires. Designating Saudi Arabia does not give you certainty at 18 months if an opposition is running.
• Saudi Arabia will charge individual fees for designation and renewal rather than participating in the standard fee distribution. WIPO has said the amounts will follow in a separate information notice.
• Division and merger of international registrations are not available, as these procedures do not exist under Saudi practice.

Madrid is a filing mechanism, not a grant of protection. SAIP examines each designation under the GCC Trademark Law as applied in the Kingdom, using the same substantive grounds at Article 3, the same Arabic-language phonetic assessment, and the same opposition procedure described above. For portfolios spanning several jurisdictions the administrative savings are meaningful; the legal analysis behind each designation is unchanged.

Where Saudi trademark filings most often go wrong

• Filing in the wrong class, producing a registration that does not cover what the business actually sells — or assuming the class number settles a similarity question that the Law says it does not.
• Clearing only the Latin-script form of a mark and missing an Arabic-script conflict.
• Missing the 90-day modification deadline after a conditional acceptance, converting the application into an abandonment.
• Missing the 30-day publication payment after acceptance, which carries the same consequence for a mark that has already passed examination.
• Letting an opposition go unanswered. The 60-day reply deadline is not a procedural courtesy; silence loses the application outright.
• Calculating renewals on a Gregorian cycle and discovering the mark lapsed four months ago.
• Treating the opposition window as passive, and losing the chance to challenge a conflicting application while it is still cheap to do so.
• Filing broadly for defensive coverage without a use plan, creating five-year non-use exposure with no evidence of use to answer it.
• Leaving an assignment or a license unrecorded, so the Register no longer reflects who owns or may use the mark.

Each of these is a calendar-and-classification problem rather than a legal one. They are also the reason Saudi filings fail disproportionately in portfolios administered from spreadsheets and email threads, where a modification deadline and a Hijri renewal date have no owner and no automated trigger.

Frequently asked questions

How much does it cost to register a trademark in Saudi Arabia?

Official SAIP fees total SAR 6,500 per class across the registration cycle: SAR 1,000 on application, SAR 500 for publication, and SAR 5,000 for registration and certificate issuance. Professional fees are additional. Each class is charged separately.

How long does SAIP trademark registration take?

The Law requires a decision on the application within 90 days of filing. In practice most unopposed applications complete in three to six months; an opposition can extend this to a year or longer.

How long is the opposition period in Saudi Arabia?

60 days from the date of publication, and the Law provides no extension. If an opposition is filed, the applicant has a further 60 days from notification to reply in writing.

What happens if I do not respond to an opposition?

The application is treated as waived. The same consequence applies to missing the 90-day deadline to file requested amendments, the 30-day deadline to pay publication costs, and the 30-day deadline to pay the registration fee.

Can I file one application covering multiple classes?

Saudi Arabia operates a single-class filing system in practice. The Implementing Regulations allow more than one class in a single application only with the competent authority’s approval; the working assumption should be a separate application and separate fees per class.

How long does a Saudi trademark last?

10 years from the filing date, counted on the Hijri calendar — approximately 9 years and 8 months in Gregorian terms — renewable indefinitely for further terms of the same length, with a grace period of six Hijri months after expiry, at a higher fee.

Can I claim priority from an earlier foreign application?

Yes, where the earlier application was filed in a state party to a multilateral convention to which a GCC state belongs. The declaration, a copy of the earlier application, and an Arabic translation must be filed within six months of the earlier filing; original priority documents may follow within three months of the Saudi filing.

Can sound or smell marks be registered?

Yes. The Law recognizes both. A sound mark is filed as a musical notation or a written description; a scent mark as a written description.

Can foreign companies register a trademark in Saudi Arabia?

Yes, through a licensed local IP agent recorded in SAIP’s agent registry. From October 8, 2026, foreign owners can alternatively designate Saudi Arabia through the Madrid System.

Which edition of the Nice Classification does SAIP use?

SAIP has applied the 12th edition since November 2023. WIPO’s 13th edition (NCL 13-2026) took effect on January 1, 2026, and SAIP had not announced its adoption at the time of writing — confirm which edition the portal is running before you finalize a specification. Goods and services are selected from SAIP’s predefined list rather than drafted freely.

Managing Saudi filings as part of a portfolio

Most of what determines whether a Saudi trademark survives is not the filing itself. It is what happens across the ten years that follow: a 90-day modification deadline answered on time, a 30-day publication payment made, a gazette watched during a competitor’s opposition window, a renewal calculated on the right calendar, and evidence of use kept against a five-year non-use challenge.

NovaLexi^® is building the infrastructure for exactly this. NovaFlow™ handles deadline and renewal orchestration with configurable roles and escalation, replacing the email-and-spreadsheet approach that these deadlines routinely defeat. NovaAi^® assists across the workflow, from claim decomposition to drafting support. Direct API integration with SAIP is in progress.

Contract management is where this is heading next, and the Law explains why. A trademark’s commercial life happens inside contracts — license agreements, distribution and franchise arrangements, coexistence agreements, sponsorships — and those documents carry obligations the statute treats as consequential: a license must be in writing and cannot outlast the protection period; an assignment or mortgage has no effect against third parties until it is recorded; a recorded license constrains the owner’s ability to cancel the registration; use by a licensee is what answers a non-use challenge. NovaLexi is extending the solution to track the intangible assets embedded in those contracts: which registrations a given agreement touches, the territories and classes it covers, the use obligations that protect against five-year non-use cancellation, the recordals that make a transaction opposable, and the dates on which rights lapse or revert. From there, each asset connects back to its full lifecycle in the solution — capture, protection, renewals, governance, and commercialization — so the contract and the registration it depends on are managed as one record rather than in separate systems. Request a demo.

This guide is provided for general information and does not constitute legal advice. It summarizes the GCC Trademark Law and its Implementing Regulations as applied in Saudi Arabia; the Arabic text of those instruments is the governing version, and English translations are published for convenience only. Official fees, procedures, and timelines are set by SAIP and change periodically; verify current requirements at saip.gov.sa or consult a licensed Saudi IP agent before filing.