Intellectual property law in Cyprus

Intellectual property in Cyprus runs on statute. Patents, trade marks, industrial designs, copyright and trade secrets each have their own law, and the older common law actions for passing off and breach of confidence sit alongside them. The whole framework operates inside EU law and the international conventions Cyprus has signed.

George K. Konstantinou Law Firm provides legal support for intellectual property matters in Cyprus for domestic and international companies. We register and renew trade marks, patents and industrial designs, advise on copyright protection, handle infringement claims, and structure agreements for the commercial use or sale of IP rights, including the Cyprus IP Box regime.

Below our legal team sets out what each right protects, what registration costs, how long protection lasts, and which statutes apply.

What is intellectual property?

Intellectual property (IP) refers to creations of the human mind, such as inventions, designs, marks, or works of art. Legal protection gives owners exclusive rights to use their creations, guards against unauthorised use, and turns the creation into an asset the business can license, sell or borrow against.

Intellectual property in Cyprus

Cyprus is an EU member state and a member of the World Intellectual Property Organisation, so a Cyprus right sits inside the same system as a right registered anywhere else in the union. An EU trade mark or a Community design covers Cyprus with no separate national filing. A European patent takes effect here once it is validated.

The second reason companies hold IP through Cyprus is tax. Qualifying income from patents and copyrighted software can be taxed at an effective rate as low as about 3%. The IP Box section below sets out how that works.

What does it cost to register intellectual property in Cyprus?

Official fees payable to the Department of Registrar of Companies and Intellectual Property. Legal fees are separate and depend on the work involved.

Right	Cost to register	Renewal
Trade mark	€129 online or €141 by hand or post, for the first class. Each extra class adds €94 online or €102 by hand or post	Every 10 years: €73 online or €75 by hand or post, plus €59 or €60 per extra class
Patent	€100 to file a national application on form Π.9. €100 to validate a European patent on form Π.17	Annually from the third year, starting at €50 and rising to the twentieth year
Industrial design	€205.03 in total on form ΒΣΥ1: €85.43 to submit, €51.26 for the first five-year period and €68.34 for publication	Every 5 years: €85.43 for the second period, €136.69 for the third, €170.86 for the fourth and €256.29 for the fifth
Copyright	No fee. Protection arises automatically with no registration	None
Trade secret	No fee. No register exists	None. Protection lasts as long as the information stays secret

Fees for a trade mark filing are set out in full on our page about trade mark registration in Cyprus.

Types of intellectual property and their difference from each other

Cyprus law protects five kinds of intellectual property: patents, trade marks, industrial designs, copyright, and trade secrets. Each has its own statute. The first three are registered rights. Copyright arises without registration, and trade secrets have no register at all: they work through contracts and internal controls.

• A patent protects new inventions, such as innovative products, processes, and product performance enhancement or production methods. Before a patent is granted, the invention must be new, involve an inventive step, and allow industrial application.
• A trade mark distinguishes one company's products and services from those of another. A trade mark can be a word, shape, image, sound, colour, or any combination of the above.
• An industrial design protects the appearance of a product or a part of it.
• Copyright is an automatic right that protects, among other things, literary, audiovisual, musical, theatrical, architectural, and other works of art, films, databases, recordings, publications of previously unpublished works, and computer programs.
• A trade secret protects commercial information that has value because it is not public, from a recipe to a pricing model, under Law 164(I)/2020.

The differences between the registered rights and copyright are shown in the table. Trade secrets sit outside it, because there is nothing to file and nothing to renew.

Attributes	Patent	Trade mark	Industrial design	Copyright
Maximum protection period	20 years Medicines or plant protection products: the period can be extended up to 25 years. Medicines for children: the period can be extended up to 25 years and 6 months	Unlimited	25 years	Varies depending on the nature of the work, up to 70 years from the death of the author
Registration fee	€100 to file a national patent application on form Π.9. €100 to validate a European patent in the Republic of Cyprus on form Π.17. The cost of an international application through the Patent Cooperation Treaty changes from year to year	€141 for the first class filed by hand or post, plus €102 per extra class. €129 online, plus €94 per extra class. Renewal costs €75 by hand or post, or €73 online, plus €60 or €59 per extra class	€205.03 on form ΒΣΥ1: €85.43 to submit, €51.26 for the first five-year period and €68.34 for publication. Renewals run from €85.43 for the second five-year period up to €256.29 for the fifth	Automatic protection, no registration fee
Renewal period	Annually, starting from the 3rd year	Every 10 years	Every 5 years	Automatic protection without renewal
What can be protected	Innovative inventions, new processes, a new way of working with a product	A logo or a name that distinguishes a product, a service, or a business	The appearance of a product or a part of it	A book, article, script, song, choreography, architecture, software, database, painting, photograph, or other work of art
Who is asking for protection	Inventors	Entrepreneurs, service providers, franchisors, and product owners	Designers, product owners	Writers, artists, architects, and other performing artists
Benefits of protection	Patenting provides exclusive rights to use the invention for the entire duration of the certificate	A registration certificate gives the owner the exclusive right to use the mark for the goods and services it covers, and the standing to stop others using it	Registration of an industrial design provides exclusive rights to use it during the entire registration period	Automatic protection, with the right to stop copying and to claim damages

What laws govern intellectual property rights in Cyprus?

The statutes that govern intellectual property in Cyprus

Registered rights in Cyprus come from statute, not from common law. Common law and equity still matter, in a passing off claim where a trader rides on someone else's reputation without a registered mark, and in an action for breach of confidence. The statutes are:

• The Patents Law 16(I)/1998, amended by Laws 21(I)/1999, 153(I)/2000, 163(I)/2002 and 122(I)/2006;
• The Trade Marks Law, Cap. 268, amended by Laws 63/1962, 69/1971, 206/1990, 176(I)/2000, 121(I)/2006, 63(I)/2020 and 107(I)/2021. Law 63(I)/2020 brought Cyprus into line with EU Directive 2015/2436 and reshaped filing, terms and fees;
• The Legal Protection of Industrial Designs and Models Law 4(I)/2002, amended by Laws 170(I)/2003 and 119(I)/2006;
• The Copyright and Related Rights Law 59/1976, amended many times since, most recently by Law 29(I)/2026;
• Law 164(I)/2020 on the protection of undisclosed know-how and business information against unlawful acquisition, use and disclosure, which covers trade secrets;
• The General and Limited Partnership and Business Names Law, Cap. 116, which covers the registration of business names rather than trade marks.

Cyprus is a member of the European Union and of the World Intellectual Property Organisation, and it is bound by the international instruments it has signed:

• Paris Convention for the Protection of Industrial Property;
• Berne Convention for the Protection of Literary and Artistic Works;
• Patent Cooperation Treaty, for one international patent application;
• Madrid Agreement and Madrid Protocol, for a mark in several countries at once;
• WIPO Copyright Treaty and WIPO Performances and Phonograms Treaty;
• European Patent Convention, joined on 1 April 1998;
• the EU regulation on the European Union trade mark and the EU regulation on Community designs.

Patent protection in Cyprus

Patents run under the Patents Law 16(I)/1998, amended by Laws 21(I)/1999, 153(I)/2000, 163(I)/2002 and 122(I)/2006. Applications go to the Intellectual Property Section of the Department of Registrar of Companies and Intellectual Property, part of the Ministry of Energy, Commerce and Industry.

The section keeps the patent register and publishes grants in the Official Gazette of the Republic of Cyprus. It handles trade marks and industrial designs from the same office.

A Cyprus patent lasts 20 years from the filing date, as long as the annual renewal fee is paid from the third year on. Medicinal products and plant protection products can run to 25 years through a supplementary protection certificate, and a paediatric extension adds a further six months. Patents in Cyprus can be compulsorily licensed.

Trade mark registration in Cyprus

Trade marks run under the Trade Marks Law, Cap. 268, as rebuilt by Law 63(I)/2020. A mark has to be distinctive enough to tell one trader's goods apart from another's, and it goes on the Trade Marks Register kept by the same department.

A Cyprus trade mark runs for 10 years from the date the application was filed, and it can be renewed for further 10-year periods with no limit on the number of renewals. Renewal is filed in the six months before the period ends. A late renewal is still possible for six months after expiry, at an extra 50% of the renewal fee.

An applicant can file directly, by hand, by post or through the department's online system, and an applicant with no address in Cyprus appoints someone here to receive documents. A lawyer earns the fee on the search before filing, on the classification, and on any objection the examiner raises.

Read more about trade mark registration in Cyprus.

Copyright in Cyprus

Copyright is protected by the Copyright and Related Rights Law 59/1976. It has been amended seventeen times, from Law 63/1977 through to Law 29(I)/2026, largely to carry EU copyright directives into Cyprus law.

Protection is automatic. A work is covered the moment it is written down, recorded or otherwise fixed, with no registration, no fee, no filing and no waiting.

The law reaches residents of Cyprus, legal entities and companies registered here, and foreign authors through the conventions Cyprus has signed. A work first published abroad is protected on the island on the same terms as a local one.

The term is 70 years from the end of the year in which the author died, set by the Schedule to Law 59/1976 and applied by section 5(1). Related rights, such as those of performers and of producers of sound recordings, run on their own terms.

What the law covers is broad: literary and scientific works including computer programs, musical works, artistic works including photographs, films and broadcasts, sound recordings, and original databases.

If someone copies your software, your site or your text, the remedies are civil and they start with evidence. Take a dated copy of the work and of the copying, then write to the other side. Most disputes end there. Where they do not, the court can order the copying stopped, award damages, and order delivery up or destruction of the copies. Our litigation team handles infringement claims.

Trade secrets in Cyprus

A trade secret is commercial information that is not generally known, that has value because it is secret, and that the holder keeps secret by reasonable steps. Customer lists, pricing models, recipes, manufacturing know-how and unpublished source code all fit.

Cyprus protects them under Law 164(I)/2020, which carries EU Directive 2016/943 into national law. There is no register and no fee. The right lasts as long as the information stays secret, and it dies the moment the information gets out.

The catch sits in the last limb of the definition. A holder who took no steps to keep the information secret has no trade secret to protect. The law rewards paperwork done in advance: confidentiality clauses in employment contracts, non-disclosure agreements with suppliers and counterparties, access controls on the systems that hold the information, and exit procedures when staff leave.

This is the right a Cyprus company most often loses through a departing employee, and the hardest one to get back.

Who registers intellectual property in Cyprus?

Patents and trade marks are handled by the Intellectual Property Section of the Department of Registrar of Companies and Intellectual Property, which sits under the Ministry of Energy, Commerce and Industry. Industrial designs go to the same section. There is no separate Cyprus patent office and no separate trade mark office.

The department runs an online register search. It will tell you whether a mark or a design is already registered, who owns it, which classes it covers, and when it comes up for renewal. It will not tell you whether your own mark is close enough to an earlier one to be refused or opposed. That call needs a search across similar marks in related classes, not a search for an exact match.

The Cyprus IP Box regime

Cyprus taxes qualifying intellectual property income lightly. A company deducts 80% of the qualifying profit from a qualifying intangible asset, which leaves an effective rate as low as about 3% against the 15% corporation tax that applies from 1 January 2026.

The deduction is scaled by the modified nexus fraction, so a company only reaches the 3% floor where it did the research and development itself or bought it in from unrelated parties. Spending with related parties, and the cost of buying the asset outright, cut the fraction down.

Patents, copyrighted software, utility models and certain plant and genetic protections qualify. Trade marks, brands, goodwill and other marketing intangibles do not.

The regime in force came in through Law 110(I)/2016 and follows the OECD nexus approach, so a company claiming it keeps records tying each asset to the spending behind it. Separately from the IP Box, a Cyprus company pays no withholding tax on dividends it distributes to shareholders who are not Cyprus tax residents.

Read more on the Cyprus tax system, or ask our tax lawyers whether a particular asset qualifies. Companies moving IP here usually need a Cyprus company first, and owners relocating a business to Cyprus tend to look at tax residency and non-domicile status at the same time.

What has changed in Cyprus intellectual property law

Cyprus opened its first IP box in 2012 under Law 102(I)/2012, which gave 80% relief against the 10% corporate rate of the day. That regime stopped taking new entrants on 30 June 2016, and the transitional protection for assets already inside it ended on 30 June 2021. The regime in force came in through Law 110(I)/2016 and applies from 1 July 2016.

Law 63(I)/2020 rebuilt the trade mark system on 12 June 2020. It brought Cyprus into line with EU Directive 2015/2436, took the registration term from 7 years to 10, restructured the fees, and dropped the power of attorney requirement.

Copyright has moved twice in recent years. Law 155(I)/2022 brought in the EU rules on copyright in the digital single market. Law 29(I)/2026 is the most recent amendment to Law 59/1976.

On the tax side, corporation tax rose from 12.5% to 15% on 1 January 2026 under the reform gazetted on 31 December 2025. The IP Box deduction stayed at 80%, so the effective floor on qualifying IP income moved from about 2.5% to about 3%.