Trade Marks Act 2002

Administrative provisions and miscellaneous - Miscellaneous - Regulation-making powers

199: Regulations

You could also call this:

"Rules for managing trademarks in New Zealand"

The Governor-General can make rules about trademarks in New Zealand. These rules can cover many things:

You can get help with sorting out what kind of goods or services your trademark is for.

There are rules about how to register, change, or cancel a trademark. You can split up your application, combine different applications, or register a bunch of similar trademarks at once.

The Commissioner can decide not to work with certain people who try to act as agents in trademark matters.

There are rules about bringing in or sending out goods that might break trademark laws. This includes giving money to cover costs if the Customs Service has to hold or get rid of goods.

The rules also cover how court cases about trademarks should work, including paying people who come to give evidence.

There's information about how to use the trademark register, including when you can look at it and how it can be changed.

You have to pay fees for some things to do with trademarks, and the rules say how much these cost.

The rules also cover things like how long you have to do certain tasks, what forms you need to fill out, and how you should be told about important information.

The Intellectual Property Office of New Zealand, which deals with trademarks, has rules about how it should work.

The fees for keeping a trademark registration going are set up to cover the costs of running the system and to encourage people to let registrations end if they're not using them.

These rules are called "secondary legislation" which means they're made under the authority of an Act of Parliament.

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View the original legislation for this page at https://legislation.govt.nz/act/public/1986/0120/latest/link.aspx?id=DLM165253.


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Part 5Administrative provisions and miscellaneous
Miscellaneous: Regulation-making powers

199Regulations

  1. The Governor-General may, by Order in Council, make regulations for all or any of the following purposes:

    Classification of goods or services

  2. prescribing procedures, requirements, and other matters, not inconsistent with this Act, in respect of the amended or substituted classification of goods or services for the purposes of the registration of trade marks under this Act:
    1. Registration of trade marks

    2. prescribing procedures, requirements, and other matters, not inconsistent with this Act, in respect of the registration, or renewal or alteration or cancellation, of trade marks under this Act, including—
      1. providing for the division of an application for the registration of a trade mark into several applications:
        1. providing for the division of a registration of a trade mark into several registrations:
          1. providing for the merging of separate applications or registrations:
            1. providing for the registration of a series of trade marks:
            2. Licensees

              1. Agents

              2. prescribing classes of persons whom the Commissioner may refuse to recognise as agents in respect of proceedings:
                1. Importation or exportation of infringing goods

                2. prescribing procedures, requirements, and other matters, not inconsistent with this Act, in respect of the importation or exportation of infringing goods under this Act, including—
                  1. requiring a person to give security or an indemnity or both, subject to any conditions determined by the chief executive of the New Zealand Customs Service, for any costs incurred by the New Zealand Customs Service in relation to any 1 or more of the detention of goods, the disposal of goods, or the recovery of sums owed:
                    1. providing for exceptions to any requirement to give security or an indemnity imposed by any regulations made under subparagraph (i):
                      1. providing for the disposition of any security given under any regulations made under subparagraph (i):
                        1. prescribing how goods that are forfeited to the Crown under section 151 or section 154 are to be disposed of:
                        2. Proceedings

                        3. prescribing procedures, requirements, and other matters, not inconsistent with this Act, in respect of proceedings under this Act, including—
                          1. providing for the payment of witnesses' expenses:
                            1. imposing fines not exceeding $1,000 for the failure or refusal of a person to attend and give evidence:
                            2. Register

                            3. prescribing procedures, requirements, and other matters, not inconsistent with this Act, in respect of the register and its operation, including matters relating to—
                              1. access to the register:
                                1. the location of and hours of access to the register:
                                2. prescribing the manner in which the Commissioner may alter the register under section 78A, including prescribing procedures, requirements, and other matters in respect of an alteration:
                                  1. Fees

                                  2. prescribing matters in respect of which fees are payable under this Act and the amounts of those fees:
                                    1. Extensions of time

                                    2. prescribing time and extensions of time in respect of any matters under this Act:
                                      1. Forms

                                      2. prescribing forms for the purposes of this Act; and those regulations may require—
                                        1. the inclusion in, or attachment to, forms of specified information or documents:
                                          1. forms to be signed by specified persons:
                                          2. Notices

                                          3. prescribing procedures, requirements, and other matters, not inconsistent with this Act, in respect of notices under this Act, including prescribing the matters in respect of which notices are required under this Act:
                                            1. Intellectual Property Office of New Zealand

                                            2. regulating, in a manner not inconsistent with this Act, the business of the Intellectual Property Office of New Zealand in relation to trade marks and all things that are under the direction or control of the Commissioner:
                                              1. General

                                              2. providing for any other matters contemplated by this Act, necessary for its administration, or necessary for giving it full effect.
                                                1. The structure of the fee system under this Act prescribed by regulations under subsection (1) may be such that any renewal fees—

                                                2. recover a share of the costs incurred by the Commissioner in performing his or her functions under this Act; and
                                                  1. recover those costs at a level that provides an appropriate incentive for persons to let registrations of trade marks lapse if they do not receive sufficient benefit from having the registration.
                                                    1. Regulations under this section are secondary legislation (see Part 3 of the Legislation Act 2019 for publication requirements).

                                                    Notes
                                                    • Section 199(1)(b)(ia): inserted, on , by section 26(1) of the Trade Marks Amendment Act 2011 (2011 No 71).
                                                    • Section 199(1)(c) heading: repealed, on , by section 26(2) of the Trade Marks Amendment Act 2011 (2011 No 71).
                                                    • Section 199(1)(c): repealed, on , by section 26(2) of the Trade Marks Amendment Act 2011 (2011 No 71).
                                                    • Section 199(1)(e) heading: amended, on , by section 183(1) of the Regulatory Systems (Economic Development) Amendment Act 2025 (2025 No 11).
                                                    • Section 199(1)(e): amended, on , by section 183(2) of the Regulatory Systems (Economic Development) Amendment Act 2025 (2025 No 11).
                                                    • Section 199(1)(e)(i): replaced, on , by section 26(3) of the Trade Marks Amendment Act 2011 (2011 No 71).
                                                    • Section 199(1)(ga): inserted, on , by section 41 of the New Zealand Business Number Act 2016 (2016 No 16).
                                                    • Section 199(1)(j): replaced, on , by section 26(4) of the Trade Marks Amendment Act 2011 (2011 No 71).
                                                    • Section 199(1)(l) heading: replaced, on , by section 249 of the Patents Act 2013 (2013 No 68).
                                                    • Section 199(1)(l): amended, on , by section 249 of the Patents Act 2013 (2013 No 68).
                                                    • Section 199(2): inserted, on , by section 249 of the Patents Act 2013 (2013 No 68).
                                                    • Section 199(3): inserted, on , by section 3 of the Secondary Legislation Act 2021 (2021 No 7).