An international trademark is a form of trademark protection that arises from a procedure conducted with the cooperation of the International Bureau of the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) and can extend to any or all of the member states that have joined the international agreement forming the basis of the organization. The rights provided by this trademark protection are therefore the same as those provided by a national or European Union trademark, but the territorial scope of the legal protection can be much broader. An international trademark does not mean that the proprietor acquires trademark rights covering all countries of the world; rather, through this protection, the proprietor can obtain a national trademark in the territory of several member states with a single application.
How can I obtain an international trademark?
To obtain an international trademark, we need a base trademark, which can be national or European Union-based. We can file an application with WIPO based on this trademark, so that the organization forwards the application to the designated contracting member states. During the submission, we must specify the trademark for which we want to initiate the extension, as well as the countries to which we wish to extend the protection.
What are the costs associated with an international trademark?
A procedural fee of 653 or 903 Swiss francs – depending on whether the mark is in color or not – must be paid to the office, which is an item independent of the number of designated countries. In addition to this, a supplementary fee must also be paid per country, which may vary for each country. Therefore, the exact costs can only be calculated after selecting the countries.
Why is it worth choosing an international trademark?
A significant advantage of an international trademark application is that the applicant does not have to prepare the trademark application in the official language of each target country and pay the application fee in the respective currency in every country. Instead, they can initiate a trademark registration procedure for several countries with a single application. Given that the spread of the internet allows us to easily sell our goods and services abroad, we can obtain trademark protection by precisely designating the target sales countries, thereby simplifying and making the acquisition of protection more cost-effective. It may also happen that a national trademark registered in a single EU member state poses an obstacle to filing a European Union trademark. This problem can also be remedied by filing an international trademark designating all EU member states, except for the one where the already registered trademark protection would obstruct our application.
If you need assistance with the registration of international trademarks, please contact us with confidence!
