Jamaican It Easy to Keep This Secret: Part 2
Rachael Lodge Corrie | February 09, 2026
Rachael Lodge Corrie is a Partner of the boutique law firm Foga Daley based in Kingston, Jamaica. As a member of the Firm’s Intellectual Property Department, she focuses on complex trademark matters, including prosecution, responding to office actions, opposition and revocation proceedings and trademark portfolio management. She is currently a member of the INTA Presidential Task Force, co-chair of the Curriculum and Strategic Advancement Subcommittee of INTA’s Trademark Administrators Committee and is a member of the Women’s IP Today steering committee, a non-profit organization advancing the interests and rights of women in the workplace globally. Rachael also tutors Entertainment Law at the University of the West Indies and is a member of the Jamaican Bar Association (JAMBAR) Intellectual Property Committee and Telecommunications, Broadcasting and Technology Committee.
In early 2024, I had the pleasure of offering an Alt Legal Webinar, Jamaican It Easy to Keep this Secret: Peculiarities of Jamaican trademarks, walking through some of the requirements and strategies for trademark prosecution in Jamaica, the peculiarities of searching Jamaica’s Trademarks Register, amendments to Jamaican trademark law and nuanced strategies for leveraging the Paris Convention and local practices to keep filings private. At the time of that presentation, Jamaica was still relatively new to the Madrid Protocol, having only implemented it on September 30, 2023. At that stage, I had also noted that some changes to certain practices of the Jamaica Intellectual Property Office (JIPO) were anticipated, but details regarding the scope of these changes were not yet available. Now that some time has passed, these changes have not only been implemented, but the impact on the trademark practice can also be observed.
Stealth Filing Strategy Recap
As a quick refresher, “stealth” or “submarine” filings are regular trademark filings whose publication and overall disclosure to the public is strategically delayed for commercial reasons. The strategy allows applicants to secure trademark protection, while reducing the risk of inadvertent disclosure of commercially sensitive information.
Additional Resources:
Tongan Shell Game: How Apple and Google File Trademarks
Article 4 of the Paris Convention provides the legal framework for the strategy, allowing member states to file trademark applications and subsequently enjoy a right of priority for 6 months for the purposes of filing in other member countries.
One of the ways the risk of inadvertent disclosure is reduced is by filing in jurisdictions where there are restrictions on the accessibility of the Trademarks Register. At the time of our presentation, the practice of the JIPO was that searches of the Trade Marks Register, were solely accessible through the IPO, whether by visiting the JIPO in person to conduct a search or requesting JIPO to conduct the search and e-mail the results. At that time, one of the considerations we would have cautioned about was that a phonetic similarity search could potentially reveal a pending application, provided of course that the mark being searched was phonetically similar to the pending application. This practice has since changed.
Introduction of e-JIPO
On March 1, 2024, JIPO discontinued that trademark search facility and launched an online platform known as “e-JIPO”, which allows certain services to be completed online, including basic trademark searches. Despite the transition to an online system, this development has further strengthened the viability of this filing strategy. Access to the portal is currently limited to local agents and applicants located in Jamaica, and only a restricted range of searches and filings can be conducted through it. Most notably, pursuant to a Practice Direction issued by JIPO, users of this platform will NOT have access to pending or unpublished trade mark applications. A detailed trademark search must still be conducted by a member of JIPO’s staff and will only provide further information on marks that were already revealed by the basic search, namely published and registered marks. This means that even with a phonetic similarity search, a pending application will no longer be revealed.
As a result, applicants need to bear in mind that this practice will also impact on the results of a pre-clearance search since new and pending applications will not appear in those results. It is therefore possible that an unpublished application for an identical or similar mark which could operate as a bar to the registration of the proposed mark could be omitted from the search results.
Likewise, proprietor searches can still only be conducted directly with the JIPO. This aligns with JIPO’s Practice Direction dated September 20, 2016 which outlines that:
“Proprietor searches will be performed by the office upon request and payment of the requisite fees with only information on published and registered marks being provided.”
Importantly, only applications filed through the national route benefit from this facility. Applications designating Jamaica through Madrid will be uploaded to WIPO’s Madrid Monitor Platform and hence will be visible to third parties.
Processing Timelines
Applicants often raise questions about the current examination timelines, as well as the availability of certified copies. Currently, it takes approximately 8-10 months for an application to be examined. This timeline allows Applicants to take full advantage of the 6-month priority period. The legislation also provides for expedited examination, as well as expedited processing for most services offered by the IPO.
As mentioned in my previous presentation, the rules do not provide a set timeline within which expedited examination or processing should be completed and give the Registrar the power to suspend and resume expedited services as the Registrar deems fit. However, on February 29, 2024, JIPO issued a Practice Direction to give some general guidance on timelines for expedited services. Of particular importance, the Direction indicates that the timeline for expedited examinations is approximately 2-3 months. Applicants can rest assured that in instances where they have seen applications filed in Jamaica published within a 4-month time frame (well before the end of the 6-month priority period), these Applicants have specifically requested expedited examination.
It is also important to note the availability of expedited processing when requesting certified copies. Certified copies are typically required to claim the Jamaican priority date in other jurisdictions, and the requirements of the respective IPOs where the priority documents will be submitted may vary.
Requesting certified copies within the normal processing timelines will take a minimum of seven working days. Please note that applications with a larger number of pages may require additional time. Expedited processing is available at an additional cost, and the turnaround time for this option will also depend on the number of pages in the application. JIPO’s Practice Direction offers the following timelines.
| Number of Pages | Expedited Period |
| 1 – 5 pages | 2 days |
| 6 – 10 pages | 3 days |
| 11 – 15 pages | 4 days |
| 16 pages or more | 5 days |
Applicants must therefore bear these timelines in mind when determining when to request the certified copies to make their priority claim elsewhere and also give consideration to whether the certified copies will be need to be notarized, legalized, presented in hard copy or whether a simple scanned copy will suffice for the jurisdiction in which it will be filed.