From a name in use to an enforceable mark in Colombia and abroad
Using a sign in the market does not replace registration before the SIC. In 2025 almost all distinctive-sign filings in Colombia were trademarks: the bottleneck is no longer awareness, it is ownership, classes and watch services.
The 2025 figure
According to Superintendence of Industry and Commerce figures compiled in PONS IP’s IP.CO study (2025), Colombia saw 49,034 distinctive-sign applications; 98.6% were trademarks. The system is used. What still fails inside the company is integrating that registration into operations: who owns it, in which Nice classes, and what happens when a third party publishes a similar sign in the Gazette.
Exclusive rights in a trademark, under the Andean regime (Decision 486), are acquired by registration. Use on social media or at a storefront gives commercial recognition; it does not, by itself, confer the power to exclude whoever filed first with the SIC.
The problem we see
The pattern repeats: the name is already on packaging and ads, an agency made the logo, and the application — if it exists — covers one class while the business operates in three. Meanwhile first-in-time, first-in-right is already running in someone else’s favor.
Add the wrong owner: the founder as a natural person, a partner who is gone, or the agency. Scaling channels on that base is building on an asset that is not in the company.
How we structure it
We start with prior marks and likelihood of confusion, not with the form. We define the sign, the owner and the list of goods or services. We file with the SIC, reply to office actions and leave watch services: oppositions, non-use cancellation and infringement.
If the market is no longer only Colombia, the Madrid Protocol allows, with a basic SIC application or registration, designating other Madrid Union countries in one language and one fee set. It is neither automatic nor cheap: territories must follow real sales, not a decorative map. The international application is filed through the SIC as office of origin; WIPO does not take the filing directly from the user.
What changes for the business
The deliverable is not “a certificate”. It is a sign that can be opposed, licensed and defended, with distribution contracts that do not leave trademark use in the air. Client detail is anonymized; the method is this.
General analysis of the Colombian framework. It is not legal advice and does not describe a named client matter.
