The protection of registered Trademarks in Nigeria was guaranteed in 1967.
A Trademark is a visual and distinct identification of goods or services offered by the owner of a business.
A well-designed trademark tells the world what a company does, what it stands for and what it offers in terms of goods and/or services.
A Trademark need not be words; it can either be a symbol, shape, sign, design, or an expression that identifies products or services of a particular source from that of others.
Service marks are just like trademarks. They are used to identify a service rather than a product. Before 2007, Trademarks were registered solely as goods. Trademarks covering services could only be registered in class 16 – which includes paper, goods made from that material, office requisites and related materials.
The COCACOLA trademark was invented by the inventors Bookkeeper. While the inventor, Pemberton was experimenting with a medicinal formula which included coca leaves and kola nuts as sources of its ingredients. Frank Robinson, his bookkeeper, and partner to Pemberton, gave the syrup formula the name Coca-Cola, ‘Coca’ from the coca leaves used and ‘Cola’ for the kola nuts
Nigeria is a party to the Madrid Agreement on International Registration of Trademarks and the Nice Agreement on the International Classification of Goods and Services (There are 45 classes of Trademarks in Nigeria. All Trademarks are registered in Classes, depending on the product or service type)
The laws governing trademark administration and the enforcement of it accruing rights in Nigeria are contained in the Trade Marks Act (TMA) 1965, and Trade Marks Regulations of 1967
Trademarks that are deceptive immoral scandalous or trademarks likely to cause confusion cannot be registered.
On the ownership of Trademarks, Nigeria uses a “first to file” system. This means that the first person to register a trademark is the one with the right to prevent others from using identical or confusingly similar Trademarks.

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