According to the IMPI portal (checked in September 2026), the trademark application is filled out online today, on the Marca en Línea platform inside the PASE portal, and signed with your SAT e.firma (the SAT is Mexico's tax authority). If the IMPI finds a formal error, it issues a requirement notice and, under the Federal Law for the Protection of Industrial Property, you have 2 months to fix it, extendable to 4 with an additional fee; if you don't respond, the application is abandoned. Here is every field on the form, what to put in it, and where most people go wrong.
Before you open the form: what you need ready
- A PASE account with the IMPI and a valid e.firma for the owner or the attorney
- The owner's details: full name or company name, nationality, address, RFC or CURP (Mexico's tax and population ID numbers) and email
- The mark in its final version: the exact word and, if it has a design, the logo as a clean digital file with no leftover backgrounds or borders
- The Nice class chosen and the list of goods or services you want to protect
- If you already use the mark, the date of first use and something that backs it up (invoices, posts, packaging)
- A prior search already done, so you don't pay for an application that will collide with an existing mark
That last point saves the most money. How to do it is covered in how to check whether a trademark is already registered.
The form, field by field
| Field | What goes in it | Common mistake |
|---|---|---|
| Applicant details | Who will own the mark: an individual or a company | Listing the designer or a partner instead of the real owner |
| Attorney | The person filing on the owner's behalf, if applicable | Not proving their authority with the proper document |
| Type of mark | Word mark, design mark, combined, three-dimensional or others | Choosing a word mark when the logo is what matters, or the other way around |
| Name or design | The exact word or the logo file | Uploading a version that will change later |
| Non-reserved wording | Words that appear but are not protected on their own | Leaving blank a field that does apply, such as SA de CV (Mexico's corporate suffix) or a city name |
| Date of first use | When you started using it, or that it has not been used | Entering a date you cannot prove |
| Class and goods or services | The Nice class and a specific description | Describing vaguely or under the wrong class |
| Place of business | Where the goods are made or the services are provided | Leaving it out when a physical location already exists |
The field that triggers the most requirements: goods and services
The Nice Classification has 45 classes: 34 for goods and 11 for services. Choosing the class is only half the job; the other half is describing what you sell with the precision the IMPI expects. Descriptions like "all goods in the class" or "services in general" usually come back with a requirement. What works is describing things concretely and, when it exists, using the term that already appears in the class's official list.
If your business sells products and also provides a service (say, you roast coffee and run a coffee shop), you probably need more than one class, and each one is paid separately. The guide for deciding is in Nice classes: which category to register your trademark in.
Type of mark: the decision you can't fix later
A word mark (called "nominativa" in Mexico) protects the word itself, written in any font and color. A design-only mark protects just the design, with no words. A combined mark protects the pairing of word and design exactly as you file it. If your logo changes every year but the name stays, the word mark is usually the most useful; if the design is what sets you apart, consider the combined mark or registering both. You cannot change this choice once the application is filed.
Mistakes that trigger requirements or a refusal
- A generic or descriptive mark: registering the word that names what you sell, like "Coffee" for a coffee shop, is not distinctive and gets refused
- A conflict with an earlier, similar mark in the same class, which a prior search would have caught
- The wrong class or an ambiguous description of goods and services
- A logo with dirty backgrounds, watermarks or a resolution too low to see the design properly
- The wrong owner, for example an individual when the mark should be in the company's name
The first three are common grounds for refusal, and the money you paid is not refunded. The full timeline of the process is in registering your trademark with the IMPI: costs and timelines.
After you submit the form
When you file, you get a file number and an acknowledgment receipt. First comes the formal examination, which checks that the form is complete, and then the substantive examination, which compares your mark against those already registered. Every IMPI notice arrives as an official letter, so check your file every week: a requirement left unanswered past the deadline means you lose the application and what you paid. How long these two stages take is detailed in how long trademark registration takes.
At Elevalia
With our trademark registration service we run the phonetic prior search, define the class and the description, fill out and file the form, and follow up on every official notice until the decision, starting at $7,990 MXN for one class. The IMPI's official fees are paid separately. If you'd rather do it yourself, use the table above as a checklist before you sign.