The DKPTO API for trademark search

Patent- og Varemærkestyrelsen (DKPTO) is the Danish national authority responsible for examining and registering trademarks, patents, utility models, and designs in Denmark. Headquartered in Taastrup outside Copenhagen, it operates under the Ministry of Industry, Business and Financial Affairs and maintains the Danish trademark register under the Danish Trade Marks Act (Varemærkeloven). The register holds roughly 400,000 records and receives approximately 20,000 new national trademark applications per year — small relative to DPMA or EUIPO, but strategically important for Nordic and pan-European brand portfolios.

Because Denmark is an EU member state, most applicants who want broad European coverage file an EU trademark (EUTM) at EUIPO — a single EUTM covers all 27 EU countries, Denmark included, for not much more than a Danish national fee. DKPTO's national register exists for the case where applicants only need Danish protection, want to lock in an earlier Danish seniority date before extending via Madrid, are responding to local prior rights that would block a wider EUTM, or want examination under the Varemærkeloven with appeals through the Danish system. DKPTO has been a Madrid Protocol member since 1996, so Denmark can also be designated through WIPO as an alternative to a direct DKPTO filing. The office is unusually open to multilingual prosecution — applications can be filed in English (with a Danish list of goods and services), and refusal responses are accepted in Danish, English, Swedish, or Norwegian.

DKPTO exposes the register primarily through PVSOnline, the free public database at onlineweb.dkpto.dk/pvsonline, alongside the TMview integration via EUIPO's TM Network. Denmark generally follows open-data policies, and DKPTO joined WIPO's Digital Access Service in September 2023 for trademark and design priority documents. The office also anchors deep Nordic IP cooperation: it co-founded the Nordic Patent Institute with Norway and Iceland (headquartered in Taastrup), coordinates examination practice with PRV (Sweden), Patentstyret (Norway), PRH (Finland), and ISIPO (Iceland), and participates in EUIPO Convergence Programme work. The DKPTO register is not on Signa yet. Danish marks reach Signa today through WIPO Madrid designations, and EU trademarks from EUIPO, which cover Denmark, are searchable today. Join the waitlist to hear when the DKPTO register is added.