Geographical Indications (Amendment) Regulations, 2025 (No. 3)

The fee schedule for geographical indications has been replaced. The First Schedule to the Geographical Indications Regulations, 2016 is repealed and substituted, and the 2023 amendment (SI 96 of 2023) is repealed with it.

Fees are set in two columns: a local cooperative or association of producers (a collective society), and a foreign applicant. Registering a geographical indication costs 50 locally and 200 for a foreign applicant. Renewal at the expiry of the last registration is 20 and 200.

Contested proceedings are where the gap widens most. Filing an opposition costs 20 locally and 200 for a foreign applicant. A counter statement under section 18(4), a request for registration under section 19, and a request for cancellation are each 10 locally and 80 for a foreign applicant. Routine housekeeping is cheap on both sides: amending or correcting application documents is 10 or 40, advertisement is 15 or 40, certified copies of extracts are 10 or 20 per page, and an extension of time is 10 or 20.

The fee table itself prints no currency symbol. The notes say foreign applicants pay all fees in United States dollars and local applicants may pay in Zimbabwean dollars at the prevailing bank rate, which indicates the figures are US dollar amounts, but the instrument does not state that in terms.

A collective society is defined by reference to the Co-operative Societies Act [Chapter 24:05]: a society all of whose members work for it and in which the means of production are jointly owned by the members. No commencement date is stated; the instrument was gazetted on 18 April 2025.