If you are thinking about expanding your business to other countries, or run an online business that can be accessed by people all over the world, then you may want to think about protecting your brand with international trade marks. If your business isn’t protected, then someone else abroad could either leverage the status of your brand to help their business, or damage your brand’s reputation by using your name on a business with inferior product or poor business practices.
To register an international trade mark, you have to apply to each country individually, however this can be managed centrally through the Madrid System from the WIPO (World Intellectual Property Organisation.) The process is still lengthy, taking 12-18 months depending on the country, but considerable amounts of time and money are saved by using the centralised Madrid System compared to separate applications.
The international trade mark application process is quite complex, so we have created the following infographic to help explain it.
