Korean trademarks in Colombia: Madrid designation through MOIP (KIPO), SIC filing, Hangul marks and apostilles

A trademark registered in Korea does not protect the same brand in Colombia.

Register a Korean trademark in Colombia: key facts

Six steps from the Korean office to the SIC register

1. Search: check the SIC register for identical and similar marks, pending applications included, before any official fee is paid; once the procedure starts, fees are not refunded (Decision 486, Article 277).
2. Choose the route: a Madrid designation through MOIP (KIPO) when the Korean base is settled, or a direct SIC application within six months of the first Korean filing to keep its date (Madrid Protocol, Article 6(3); Decision 486, Article 9).
3. File: on the Madrid route, the Korean office certifies the international application against the Korean base and WIPO notifies Colombia; on the direct route, the application goes to the SIC in Spanish, listing the goods or services and their Nice classes (Madrid Protocol, Article 3(1); Decision 486, Articles 7 and 151).
4. Publication and opposition: the SIC publishes the application in the Industrial Property Gazette and anyone with a legitimate interest may oppose within thirty business days; on the Madrid route, any refusal from Colombia, including one that follows an opposition, reaches you through WIPO (Decision 486, Articles 145 and 146; Madrid Protocol, Article 5).
5. Decision: the SIC rules on registrability and on any opposition by resolution, and a refusal can be challenged within ten days of notification; a Madrid designation that receives no refusal in time gets the protection of a SIC registration (Decision 486, Article 150; Law 1437 of 2011, Article 76; Madrid Protocol, Article 4(1)(a)).
6. Keep it: a SIC registration lasts ten years from the grant and is renewed at the SIC, while a Madrid designation follows the international registration, renewed at WIPO every ten years; either way, use the mark in the Andean Community (Decision 486, Articles 152 and 165; Madrid Protocol, Articles 6(1) and 7).

Each route is set out in detail below: designating Colombia from the Korean office and Korean priority for a direct SIC filing.

Under Colombian law the exclusive right to use a mark is acquired by registering it with the national office, which in Colombia is the Superintendence of Industry and Commerce (SIC) (Decision 486 of the Andean Community, Article 154). A Korean owner has two ways to obtain that right: name Colombia in an international application filed through the Korean office under the Madrid Protocol, or apply to the SIC directly and claim the Korean filing date as priority, which requires the Colombian application to be filed within six months of the first Korean one.

ADALET LEGAL S.A.S., a Colombian law firm, wrote this page for Korean manufacturers and brand owners preparing to sell in Colombia, appointing a Colombian importer or distributor, or answering an objection there, and for the Korean patent and trademark attorneys who look after those portfolios. The rules that apply to any foreign owner are in trademark registration in Colombia; what follows covers the points that depend on Korea: the Korean office as Office of origin, marks written in Hangul, Korean-language priority documents and the Korean authorities that issue apostilles.

A word on names. The Korean office’s English website, at kipo.go.kr, now presents it as the Ministry of Intellectual Property (MOIP); the TM5 information guide on its procedures for Madrid applicants calls it the Korean Intellectual Property Office (KIPO), the name many owners still search for. On this page both names mean the office with which a Korean trademark is filed. Decision 486 is quoted in its official Spanish, followed in brackets by an unofficial English version of our own; the Madrid texts come from WIPO Lex and the apostille material from the HCCH, the Hague Conference on Private International Law.

2003 and 2007: when Korea joined Madrid and the Apostille Convention

Two dates explain most of the Korean route. The table shows when each treaty took effect for each country, as WIPO Lex and the HCCH status table recorded them when we read them in October 2026.

Korea deposited its accession to the Madrid Protocol on January 10, 2003, three months before it took effect; Colombia joined in 2012, and from August 29 of that year a Korean international application has been able to name Colombia. WIPO Lex counts 117 members of the Protocol. The Paris Convention, binding on both countries since 1996, is what gives a Korean filing its six months of priority in Colombia. Korea applies the Nice Agreement; Colombia does not belong to it, but Decision 486 obliges the Andean countries to classify goods and services under the Nice Classification and adds that its classes «no determinarán la similitud ni la disimilitud de los productos o servicios» [shall not determine whether the goods or services are similar or dissimilar] (Article 151). Korea acceded to the Apostille Convention on October 25, 2006; under its Article 12 an accession takes effect only towards states that did not object within six months, and the HCCH table shows no objection to the Korean accession, so the Convention has applied between Korea and Colombia since July 14, 2007.

Designating Colombia from the Korean office under the Madrid Protocol

The Madrid route starts at home. The international application has to rest on a Korean application or registration standing in the name of a Korean national, a person domiciled in Korea or one with a «real and effective industrial or commercial establishment» there (Protocol, Article 2(1)(i)), and it is filed through the Korean office, which certifies that its particulars match the Korean base (Article 3(1)). The Regulations leave the language to that office: the application is in English, French or Spanish «according to what is prescribed by the Office of origin», which may also let applicants choose among the three (Rule 6(1)). Which of them the Korean office accepts is a matter for its own rules, so confirm it before the list of goods is drafted.

Fees are paid to WIPO in Swiss francs: a basic fee of 653, or 903 if any reproduction of the mark is in colour, plus the individual fee Colombia has declared, which WIPO’s table, updated on October 8, 2026, sets at 276 for one class and 138 for each additional class. Any charge the Korean office applies for its own part is set by Korean rules and is not covered here. If WIPO receives the application within two months of the date the Korean office received it, the international registration takes that Korean receipt date (Article 3(4)). From then on the mark is protected in Colombia as if it had been filed directly with the SIC, and if no refusal is notified in time, that protection becomes the same as a registration granted by the SIC (Article 4(1)(a)).

If you already hold an international registration covering other markets, Colombia can be added to it by a subsequent designation. WIPO charges a basic fee of 300 Swiss francs for that request plus Colombia’s individual fee, and the extension takes effect only from the date it is recorded in the International Register (Article 3ter(2)), not from the original international date.

Five years of dependence on the Korean base, even after an assignment

For five years from the international registration date, the Colombian designation stands or falls with the Korean base. If within that period the Korean application or registration is withdrawn, lapses, is renounced or ends in a final decision of rejection, revocation, cancellation or invalidation, for all or some of its goods and services, protection in Colombia can no longer be invoked to the same extent; the same happens when an appeal, action or opposition begun within the five years ends that way afterwards (Protocol, Article 6(3)). The rule applies to the protection «whether or not it has been the subject of a transfer». WIPO can record a change of owner for some of the designated countries only, Colombia included, if the new owner is entitled to file international applications (Article 9); but handing the Colombian part to a Colombian subsidiary or distributor that way does not cut its link with the Korean file.

If the Korean base falls and the international registration is cancelled, the Colombian date can still be saved by transformation: an application for the same mark filed with the SIC within three months of the cancellation, for goods and services that the Colombian designation actually covered and meeting Colombian requirements, is treated as filed on the international registration date, or on the date Colombia was added, with any priority the international registration enjoyed (Article 9quinquies). The trade-offs between the two routes are set out in Madrid Protocol or national filing in Colombia.

Hangul marks: transliteration, translation and the form you will use in Colombia

A mark written wholly or partly in Hangul adds a step that brands in Latin script skip. When a mark «consists of or contains matter in characters other than Latin characters», the international application must give a transliteration in Latin characters, and that transliteration «shall follow the phonetics of the language of the international application» (Regulations, Rule 9(4)(a)(xii)). In an application written in English, the Hangul is therefore spelled out as an English speaker would read it, and that spelling may sound different when a Colombian reads it in Spanish. Reading it aloud in Spanish before filing costs nothing.

Meaning is a separate item. Where the mark consists of or contains words that can be translated, the application may add a translation into English, French and Spanish, or into any one or two of them (Rule 9(4)(b)(iii)). For a Hangul word with a meaning, a Spanish translation in the international registration states that meaning in the language of the Colombian market.

Then there is the form on the shelf. If the packaging sold in Colombia will show the brand in Latin letters instead of Hangul, or both together, decide which form, or which combination, to protect there. A registration is not cancelled for non-use when the mark is used in a form that differs from the registered one only in details or elements that do not alter its distinctive character (Decision 486, Article 166). Whether a change of script stays within that margin is a question we prefer not to leave to argument, so we recommend registering the form that will actually appear on the goods.

Korean priority for a direct SIC filing

A direct application to the SIC can keep the Korean date. The first application for the mark validly filed in Korea gives its applicant, or whoever succeeds to it, a priority right to apply for the same mark in Colombia, with the scope and effects that the Paris Convention provides, and for trademarks the period is six months (Decision 486, Article 9). To use it, the SIC needs a priority declaration stating when and where the Korean application was filed and, if known, its number; a copy of that application certified by the Korean office; a certificate of its filing date from the same office; and the SIC’s priority fee, about USD 96 per class in 2026. These may be filed with the Colombian application or later, up to nine months from the Korean filing date, and a missing item or a missed deadline means the priority is lost (Articles 10 and 11).

The Korean documents will be in Korean. Article 8 requires documents filed with the Andean offices to be in Spanish or to come with a simple translation, although «la oficina nacional competente podrá dispensar de la presentación de traducciones de los documentos cuando así lo considere conveniente» [the competent national office may waive the filing of translations of the documents when it considers it appropriate]. Plan for the translation unless the SIC waives it. On the Madrid route there is no priority file to assemble at the SIC: the international application itself carries the priority claim, with the office, the date and, where available, the number of the earlier filing (Regulations, Rule 9(4)(a)(iv)).

Opposition and non-use: what counts in the Andean Community

Once a Colombian application is published, anyone with a legitimate interest has thirty days to file a reasoned opposition, once, and on request the SIC grants thirty more days, also once, to submit the evidence (Decision 486, Article 146). The same calendar works for you: a Colombian application for a mark close to yours can be opposed in that window, and in 2026 the SIC charges about USD 194 per class to oppose. If you also hold the mark in Peru, Ecuador or Bolivia, see Andean trademark opposition in Colombia.

Use is measured in the Andean Community, not in Korea. Any interested person can ask the SIC to cancel a registration whose mark, without a justified reason, went unused in every member country during the three consecutive years before the request, counting use by the owner, by a licensee or by anyone else the owner authorized, and no such action may start until three years after notice of the resolution that ended the registration procedure in the administrative channel (Article 165). The same article adds that cancellation for non-use «también podrá solicitarse como defensa en un procedimiento de oposición» [may also be requested as a defence in an opposition proceeding] brought on the basis of the unused mark. That works in both directions: an old Colombian registration that nobody uses can be attacked when it is raised against your application, and your own Colombian registration can be attacked the same way if you rely on it in an opposition after three years without use. Sales in Korea count for neither; sales in Colombia, Peru, Ecuador or Bolivia by you, a licensee or an authorized distributor do.

Cancelling one class for non-use costs about USD 846 in SIC fees in 2026; the procedure is described in trademark non-use cancellation in Colombia.

Apostilles for Korean documents: which authority

To prove the signature, the capacity of the signer and any seal or stamp on a Korean public document, Colombia may ask for nothing more than an apostille issued by a competent authority of Korea (Apostille Convention, Article 3). The HCCH page on Korea’s designation, last updated on October 15, 2026, lists four authorities: the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, for «administrative documents»; the Ministry of Justice, for documents from authorities or officials connected with the courts, for «notarial acts» and for official certificates placed on documents signed by persons in their private capacity; the National Court Administration; and the Overseas Koreans Agency.

In a trademark file this sorts most papers. A power of attorney or a declaration signed and notarized in Korea is a notarial act, which the designation gives to the Ministry of Justice; a document issued by a government agency in its administrative capacity goes to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. When a document does not fit clearly in either description, we check it against the HCCH designation before it is sent. The apostille certifies the signature, the capacity of the signer and the seal, and nothing in it translates the document, so papers written in Korean still need their Spanish translation, a simple one, unless the SIC dispenses with it (Decision 486, Article 8). Powers of attorney granted abroad are covered in power of attorney for Colombia.

The SIC’s 2026 fees in US dollars

SIC fees are set in Colombian pesos by Resolution 6167 of January 30, 2026. Converted at COP 3,174.67 per US dollar, the market representative rate (TRM) that datos.gov.co shows in force from October 17 to 19, 2026, and rounded to the dollar, these are the online-channel fees most relevant to a Korean owner:

A Madrid designation pays no SIC filing fee: Colombia is paid through WIPO’s individual fee. Resolution 75972 of September 23, 2026 repeals Resolution 6167 from January 1, 2027, so these amounts hold until December 31, 2026. Our professional fees are separate from all of this: trademark work is quoted as a flat fee, in writing, on the day you ask, and oppositions and appeals are quoted separately.

From our practice, not from any rule: a direct SIC application that meets no opposition is usually decided in six to ten months, one with an opposition in about twelve to thirteen, and an appeal against a refusal adds about eleven months. We measured real files in a study of SIC timing, published in Spanish.

Who handles your file

Andrés Felipe López Gutiérrez, founding partner, leads every Korean matter himself: he reviews the search with you, agrees the route and remains your point of contact until the file closes. He has more than 20 years of practice, has led the filing and defence of more than 3,000 trademarks before the SIC and is responsible for the legal content of the trademark guides on this site. He holds a specialisation in Commercial Law from Universidad del Rosario and one in Public Management and Administrative Institutions from Universidad de los Andes.

His trademark work includes availability searches and registrability opinions, SIC filings, oppositions on both sides, appeals against refusals, cancellation actions for non-use, renewals and assignments, coexistence agreements, the watch of entire portfolios and Madrid Protocol designations. On the commercial side he drafts distribution, franchise and supply contracts, forms and reorganizes companies and prepares shareholder agreements, the documents a Korean company tends to need next when it appoints a Colombian distributor or opens a subsidiary.

How a Korean file runs with us

First, a search of the SIC register for identical and similar marks and a written opinion on registrability, delivered before you spend anything on official fees. Then the route: a Madrid application through the Korean office naming Colombia, Colombia added to an international registration you already hold, or a direct SIC application with Korean priority while the six months run, in each case with a list of goods and services written for Colombian examination. After filing we follow the application to its decision, and if a published Colombian application comes close to your mark while the opposition window is open, we discuss it with you. Korean patent and trademark firms looking for a correspondent in Colombia can see how we work with them in Colombia trademark agent for foreign IP firms.

Not every step needs us. You can run a first availability check yourself in the SIC’s public database, as Colombia trademark search shows, and on the Madrid route a designation that meets no refusal from Colombia ends up with the protection of a SIC registration without any Colombian filing (Article 4(1)(a)). Colombian counsel is usually needed once the SIC issues a provisional refusal or someone files an opposition, since the reply must be argued in Spanish and under Colombian procedural rules; see provisional refusal in Colombia.

Sources read in October 2026 for this page: for Korea, the English website of the Ministry of Intellectual Property and the TM5 information guide on the Korean office’s procedures for Madrid applicants; for the treaties, the Madrid Protocol and its Regulations as in force on November 1, 2025, the membership records of the Protocol, the Paris Convention and the Nice Agreement on WIPO Lex, WIPO’s schedule of fees and its table of individual fees, and, from the HCCH, the Apostille Convention, its status table and Korea’s competent authorities; for Colombia and the Andean Community, Decision 486, the Andean Community’s description of its members, SIC Resolutions 6167 and 75972 of 2026, and the TRM series on datos.gov.co.

Frequently asked questions

What is an international trademark, and does it cover Colombia?

There is no single worldwide trademark. An international registration under the Madrid Protocol is one filing, made through the office where your basic mark is filed, that takes effect only in the countries you designate. It covers Colombia if Colombia is designated: from the international registration date the mark is protected there as if it had been filed with the Superintendence of Industry and Commerce (SIC), and if Colombia notifies no refusal in time, the protection is that of a SIC registration (Madrid Protocol, Article 4(1)(a)). A Korean registration on its own gives no right in Colombia, where the exclusive right comes from registration with the SIC (Decision 486, Article 154).

What is KIPO, and can it send my trademark to Colombia?

KIPO, the Korean Intellectual Property Office, is the name under which many owners know the Korean trademark office; its English website, kipo.go.kr, now presents it as the Ministry of Intellectual Property (MOIP). Under the Madrid Protocol it acts as Office of origin for marks filed or registered in Korea: it certifies that the international application matches the Korean base (Article 3(1)) and WIPO then registers it and notifies Colombia if you designate it. WIPO charges a basic fee of 653 Swiss francs (903 with colour) plus Colombia’s individual fee, 276 for one class and 138 for each additional class. If WIPO receives the application within two months, the international registration keeps the date on which the Korean office received it (Article 3(4)).

How is a Hangul trademark transliterated in an international application?

When the mark consists of or contains characters other than Latin characters, the international application must include a transliteration into Latin characters that follows the phonetics of the language of the application, so English phonetics in an application filed in English (Madrid Regulations, Rule 9(4)(a)(xii)). A translation of words that can be translated is optional and may be given in English, French and Spanish, or in any one or two of them (Rule 9(4)(b)(iii)). For Colombia, a Spanish translation states the meaning in the language of the market, and if the packaging will show the brand in Latin letters, consider protecting that form as well.

Is South Korea a member of the Hague Apostille Convention?

Yes. The Republic of Korea acceded on October 25, 2006, and the Convention entered into force for it on July 14, 2007, according to the HCCH status table; Colombia has been a party since January 30, 2001, and the table records no objection to the Korean accession. Between the two countries, then, a Korean public document needs only an apostille from a Korean competent authority, not consular legalisation, to prove its signature, the capacity of the signer and its seal (Apostille Convention, Article 3). The SIC will still expect a simple Spanish translation of any document written in Korean, unless it decides to dispense with it (Decision 486, Article 8).

Which Korean authority issues the apostille?

It depends on the document. Under Korea’s designation as published by the HCCH, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs apostilles administrative documents, and the Ministry of Justice apostilles documents from authorities or officials connected with the courts, notarial acts and official certificates placed on documents signed by private persons, such as a certificate recording that a document was registered or existed on a certain date, or an official or notarial authentication of a signature. The HCCH also lists the National Court Administration and the Overseas Koreans Agency as competent authorities. A power of attorney notarized in Korea is a notarial act, so it goes to the Ministry of Justice.

How long can a trademark go unused in Colombia before it can be cancelled?

Three consecutive years. Any interested person can have the Superintendence of Industry and Commerce cancel a registration if, without a justified reason, nobody used the mark in any Andean Community country (Bolivia, Colombia, Ecuador or Peru) during the three consecutive years before the request, counting use by the owner, a licensee or another person the owner authorized; the action cannot start until three years after notice of the resolution that ended the registration procedure in the administrative channel (Decision 486, Article 165). Use in Korea does not count. Cancellation for non-use may also be requested as a defence in an opposition based on the unused mark, and in 2026 the SIC charges about USD 846 to cancel one class.

Contact us

Send us on WhatsApp your mark, its Korean application or registration number (or your international registration number) and what you plan to sell in Colombia; we will tell you which route fits and send you a flat-fee quote the same day.

Related pages

Trademark registration in Colombia · Madrid Protocol or national filing in Colombia · Provisional refusal under the Madrid Protocol in Colombia · Andean trademark opposition in Colombia · Colombia trademark agent for foreign IP firms · Power of attorney for Colombia · Trademark non-use cancellation in Colombia · Trademark licensing and franchising in Colombia · Registering an Indian trademark in Colombia · Registering a Chinese trademark in Colombia · Registering an EU trademark in Colombia · Registering a UK trademark in Colombia · Registering a Canadian trademark in Colombia