Filing for an International Trademark to Safeguard your Business Worldwide.
Globalization has done so much good to the whole world and also particularly to the economic sector of the world. From time, the world had only practically had physical borders for humans and physical goods.
However, there has been and can be no borders when it comes to economics and its prosperity. Through globalization, the world as a whole has become a marketplace and while this comes with very good and unique opportunities, it has also posed some level of difficulty to 21st century entrepreneurs.
The whole world being a market place has resulted in market competitions being broader and far deeper. Companies now compete with one another on an international stage and as such, players now frequently opt for ways of staying ahead in the competition and they are often unethical ways, sometimes in recent times, illegal because it is through “Trademark Infringement’.
Thus, the most functioning method to guard against this illegal or illicit ways of other players in the market is through filing an application of International Trademark. This application will protect your business from being used by other competing companies for the benefit of their own purses.
Purpose of an International Trademark
To explain this as clearly as possible, let’s use CR7 as an example. When Cristiano Ronaldo was starting his business of brands like boxers, cologne amongst other things, he made the CR7 a brand that made commodities bearing the brand unique to him, that is, got a trademark.
As the business started growing bigger, and potentials of it being a very big international brand were seen, the company decided to file an application for an International Trademark.
With this, the whole world (which is now a single market place) would be restricted to use the brand to sell other products in their own name. It would be illegal if someone did, and if caught, he or she would be liable in a civil suit to pay compensation to the CR7 brand. This compensation would well be in millions of dollars, as well as injunctions to prohibit further infringement.
Filing for an International trademark Protection
To file one’s company or business for international trademark protection can be done in two ways. The first way is by going to your country’s Intellectual Property Office. You will be assisted there with the whole application process, up to its completion. Secondly. You can equally submit the application directly to the Madrid Protocol. The Madrid Protocol is a branch of the International Bureau of the World Intellectual Property.
Submitting an International Trademark Application to the Madrid Protocol
- File an application for trademark in your country at the Intellectual Property Office. In the United States of America, that is known as the Patent and Trademark Office.
- You will access the Madrid Protocol Application page from your country’s intellectual property’s website.
- You will then enter the application serial number of your business’s Trademark. After that, you choose the goods and/or services that come under the business’s trademark.
- You will choose the countries in the world that should be included in the trademark.
- Fill in the necessary details about the holder of the trademark. This would be used for the verification process.
- Payment of the filing fees.
- Submit the International Trademark Protection application.
When filing for the International Trademark Protection Application, you need to make sure that you avoid errors/mistakes.
This is because any little error would most likely lead to your trademark being rejected. Upon the filing and acceptance of the application, the trademark becomes duly protected worldwide (or in the countries you selected) and any subsequent infringement would render the perpetrator liable to compensating you.
