If you used a brand in Saudi Arabia before another party registered it, and you never registered it yourself in Saudi Arabia, you can ask the commercial court to cancel their registration (revocation for prior use under art. 7(2) of the GCC Trademark Law), provided you act within five years of that registration.
Prior-use revocation lets the earlier user of a brand cancel a later registration of that same brand by someone else. A person who used a mark before the party in whose name it was registered may ask the competent court to cancel that registration within five years of the registration date, unless the earlier user expressly or impliedly consented to the registrant's use.
The logic is that registration records a right, it does not create one out of nothing. Saudi law treats good-faith registration as ownership, but art. 7(1) only makes that ownership unchallengeable once the registration has been paired with five years of use and no dispute. Inside that five-year window, an earlier user can still displace the registrant. This is a means-based remedy: you are asking the court to weigh evidence of who used the brand first, not buying a guaranteed result.
This page covers one remedy only. The pivotal fact is whether you already hold a Saudi registration for the brand. If you do, your route is cancellation (arts. 22 to 26), because your registration already proves your priority and you no longer have to prove earlier use from scratch. Prior-use revocation is the remedy for the earlier user who never registered the mark in Saudi Arabia and has only their use to rely on. A registration the brand holds in another country does not change this, because trademark rights are territorial.
The dividing line is one fact: do you already hold a Saudi registration for the brand? If you registered the mark in Saudi Arabia, your priority is fixed on the public record, and the route to remove a conflicting mark is cancellation (arts. 22 to 26), because your registration already proves your earlier right. If you never registered it in Saudi Arabia, and rely only on having used the brand first, the route is prior-use revocation (art. 7(2)). A registration you hold in another country does not move you into cancellation, because it gives you no right on the Saudi register. Choose the wrong action and the claim can fail on that ground alone, before the court ever weighs your evidence.
| Cancellation | Revocation for prior use | |
|---|---|---|
| Your starting point | You already hold a Saudi registration for the brand | You used the brand first but never registered it in Saudi Arabia |
| Statutory basis | arts. 22 to 26 | art. 7(2) |
| What proves your priority | Your existing Saudi registration | Documentary evidence of earlier use |
| Core question | Was the conflicting registration lawful? | Who used the brand first? |
| Who can bring it | The holder of the registered mark, or a party with a direct interest | The earlier user of the brand |
| Deadline | Per the ground (for example, five years of non-use under art. 24) | Five years from the challenged registration |
Filing the action correctly from the start is what keeps a case from being rejected on that ground alone, before its merits are ever heard. Saudi courts characterise the action by its substance, not by the label on your pleading, and that works against a claimant who chooses the wrong one. It is not a safety net: it does not let you file loosely and rely on the court to put the claim right. When a claimant who held no Saudi registration pleaded cancellation while resting purely on earlier use, the court rejected the cancellation framing and treated the matter as a prior-use revocation. That re-reading routinely cuts against the claimant. In another matter the court applied the five-year clock from the registration date and dismissed a claim that, recast as the prior-use revocation it really was, had been filed too late (see the deadline section below).
Two things have to hold: standing and earlier use. For standing, you need a direct, current interest in cancelling the mark, which the brand's actual user or owner will normally have. For the merits, you prove that your use of the brand in Saudi Arabia predates the challenged registration.
You are the party who used the brand, or you represent them. Ownership can sit with an individual even where a company later trades under the mark, so long as the evidence shows that individual created and used it. In one matter the court upheld individual ownership on an email trail, design payments from a personal account, and the timeline, against an argument that a company was the true owner.
Your use of the brand came before the registration you are challenging. This is the heart of the case, and the evidence section below is entirely about how it is proved.
You did not expressly or impliedly agree to the registrant using the mark. Consent, if the registrant can show it, defeats the claim.
Dated, documentary proof wins these cases. Saudi courts look for records that fix your use of the brand to a date earlier than the registration, and they weigh that against whatever the registrant can show for their own first use. Where the registrant produces nothing on earlier use, the claimant's dated evidence tends to carry the point.
| Evidence | What it establishes |
|---|---|
| A dated brand-launch or rebrand campaign | Public use of the mark on a fixed date, often through social media posts that carry their own timestamps |
| Distribution and supply contracts | Commercial use of the brand on goods in the Saudi market before the registration |
| Payment receipts to a designer | That you commissioned and owned the mark, and when |
| Email correspondence with a designer or supplier | The development timeline of the mark, step by step |
| Earlier invoices, packaging, and marketing | A continuous record of the brand in trade |
In one revocation, the claimant had relaunched its brand identity through a dated public campaign across social platforms, all of it predating the certificate it was challenging, while the registrant offered nothing to show earlier use of its own. The court cancelled the registration. In another, distribution contracts placing the claimant's branded product in the Saudi market, read together with the registrant's own later supply arrangement for the identical product, showed both earlier use and bad faith, and the mark was cancelled. The pattern is consistent: the side that documents an earlier, datable use prevails, and an unsupported assertion of first use does not.
A registration abroad, on its own, does not prove prior use inside Saudi Arabia, and it will not carry a revocation claim by itself. Trademark rights are territorial. A registration in the country of origin shows that another registry accepted the mark, not that the brand was used in the Saudi market before the challenged registration.
We have seen a claimant rely on a home-country registration while the registrant had both used the brand in Saudi Arabia since several years earlier and held a Saudi registration. With no proof of earlier Saudi use, the claim did not succeed, and the court noted that protection for a foreign registration stays within the countries where it is registered unless the mark qualifies as well-known.
A foreign registration can support the wider story, as evidence of reputation or of when the brand first appeared, but it is a supporting fact, not a substitute for Saudi use. The same caution applies to leaning on a prior Saudi registration: art. 7(2) is about earlier use, so resting on registrations rather than use can miss the provision altogether.
The court compares the marks for points of similarity, not points of difference, starting from the position that marks are presumed to differ. Two material elements carry the comparison: the visual element (the shape, colours, and device) and the phonetic element (how the marks sound when spoken, the point at which a listener confuses one for the other). A clear overlap in either can establish similarity.
Because reasonable people, including judges, differ on what looks or sounds alike, the test is the impression on the relevant public for those goods or services, not the judge's own ear. In one matter the registrant did not dispute the claimant's earlier use and argued only that the marks were not similar. The court found the dominant word element shared and the overall form close enough to mislead an ordinary consumer, and held that added wording at the foot of the later mark did not change the overall impression. The mark was struck.
You have five years from the date of the challenged registration to bring a prior-use revocation. Miss it and the claim is highly likely to be dismissed as inadmissible, whatever its merits, because once a registration has run five years paired with use and no dispute, art. 7(1) settles ownership in the registrant.
Where a claimant filed what it called a cancellation but in substance had only prior use, the court treated it as a prior-use revocation, applied the five-year clock from the registration date, and dismissed it as out of time. If your brand is sitting against a registration that is approaching its fifth anniversary, the practical question is not whether your evidence is strong but whether there is still time to file.
On a final judgment of revocation, SAIP strikes the challenged mark from the register. What revocation does not do is hand you the registration automatically or unconditionally.
We have seen a prior user ask the court both to strike the rival mark and to clear the way for its own unrestricted registration. The court granted the cancellation on prior-use grounds but declined the second request, holding that striking-out for a registration breach and revocation for earlier use are different remedies and the claimant had pleaded the wrong one for that further relief. Plan the action around the remedy you actually need.
The deciding fact is whether you hold your own Saudi registration for the brand. If you do, your route is cancellation (arts. 22 to 26), because your registration already proves your priority. If you only used the brand first and never registered it in Saudi Arabia, your route is revocation for prior use (art. 7(2)). The two require different evidence, and Saudi courts decide which one your facts actually are.
Five years from the date of the challenged registration. After that window, art. 7(1) settles ownership in the registrant, and a late claim is highly likely to be dismissed as inadmissible whatever its merits.
Not for revocation. Prior-use revocation rests on earlier use, not on holding a registration, so you prove you used the brand in Saudi Arabia before the challenged registration with dated documentary evidence. The flip side is the deciding point: if you do hold a Saudi registration for the brand, your route is cancellation, not revocation, because your registration already fixes your priority.
On its own, no. Trademark rights are territorial, so a foreign registration shows another registry accepted the mark, not that you used it in Saudi Arabia first. It can support a reputation or first-use narrative, but it does not replace proof of Saudi use unless the mark is well-known.
Dated records that pre-date the registration: a launch or rebrand campaign with timestamps, distribution and supply contracts, payment receipts to a designer, email trails, and earlier invoices, packaging, and marketing.
Send us the challenged mark, its registration number, and the registration date. We will tell you whether the deadline under art. 7(2) is still open and what proof of earlier use your case would turn on.