International Trademarks
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International trademarks ensure that your hard earned brand identity can be protected overseas. Trademarks are territorial, meaning you need to register them in each jurisdiction in which you want to have protection.
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What You Need to Know
The starting point is to work out how to register your trademark – whether in the UK or in the EU (which includes the UK). Generally, an EU Trademark registration is the best way forward if you have an ecommerce business or you do business in more than one EU country.
If you are choosing a new name for your business, you may want to have some international trademark searching, to establish whether your desired name is available for use in the countries where you plan to use it.
After your UK or EU application is filed, you have up to six months to decide whether to extend your protection to other countries. Through the Madrid Protocol system, it is possible to cover for a number of countries using a single application. The application is based on your UK or EU trademark. See our list of countries within the Madrid System. For other countries, we file for you directly.
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International Trademark Costs
The costs to register your trademark internationally depend on the number of trademark classes and the official government fees of the countries you choose. Those fees vary a lot from one country to another.
Due to the government fees, registering in a wide range of countries can become very expensive. However, one approach to reduce the costs is to focus on a smaller number of classes, to cover your core business activities. The aim is, to ensure that you get the most cost effective coverage when protecting your brand internationally, rather than pursuing perfection at the expense of registering more widely geographically.
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Registering International Trademarks
As we said, the requirements for international trademark registration vary from country to country, but we take care of those complexities for you. For example, in certain cases you are expected to submit a declaration that you intend to use sign as a trademark, in others you may need to give a Power of Attorney and arrange for it to be “legalized”.
Some countries require you to take steps later on after your application has been filed and accepted, before it can mature into a full registration. We will be in touch with you and provide you with reminders so you do not miss on deadlines.
We publish a wealth of information on international trademarks through our blogs, so you might like to read the following to find out more about protecting your brand overseas:
- European Trademarks
- Trademark Registration and Brand Extension in China
- Trademarks and Britain Overseas
The risk of not registering a trademark in a country is that you might infringe on somebody else’s rights, or someone else may register your trademark locally as well as register a local domain name, too. This could mean using different branding in that country, that sales will be blocked there and even to a point where you need to recall products. You need a foolproof strategy in registering your trademark internationally.
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