On the 8^th of February, 2023, President Muhammadu Buhari signed the Business Facilitation (Miscellaneous Provisions) Bill, 2022, into law. According to Section 1 of the Business Facilitation (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act (hereinafter called the “Business Facilitation Act”), the Act was introduced to promote the ease of doing business in Nigeria, eliminate bottlenecks in commercial activities and procedures, and institutionalize all reforms to ease implementation.

To fulfil this key objective, the Business Facilitation Act makes crucial amendments to relevant legislation that significantly impacts business or commercial activities within the country. One such legislation is the Trade Marks Act 1965. Paragraph 69 of the Schedule to the Business Facilitation Act defines a trade mark as:

1. a mark used or proposed to be used in relation to goods or services for the purpose of indicating a connection between the goods or services and a person having the right either as proprietor or as a registered user to use the mark, whether with or without any indication of the identity of that person, and may include the shape of goods, their packaging, and combination of colours;
2. in relation to a certification trade mark, a mark registered or deemed to have been registered under section 43 of this Act:”

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