Trademark registration is territorial in nature. Separate applications need to be filed in each country where you wish to register your trademark.
If you plan to sell and market internationally, it is essential to register your trademarks in those countries. Usually, the party who first registers a mark owns it. Therefore, it is significant to register your trademarks in each country your company considers to be a potential and key market. A national trademark registration stops at the border and does not afford rights to the owner of the trademark outside the country in which it is registered.
Most companies expanding into other countries often realize the value of registering their trademarks abroad once it is too late, that is, once they are faced with counterfeiters/imitators or once they are accused of infringing the rights of others. The risks of doing so are very high and the consequences may be extremely costly and detrimental to a company’s entire business and export strategy. It can be a severe financial liability to invest in a brand, promote it in the local market, then find that the brand cannot be registered and used internationally and have to finally abandon that investment.
1. Registering a trademark abroad gives the applicant an exclusive right to commercialize its products in those markets.
2. This not only provides a solid foundation to stop counterfeiters but also ensures that the company enjoys exclusive rights over what may be one of its most valuable business assets.
3. Registering a trademark internationally also provides an opportunity to license the trademark to others or may be the basis for a company’s franchising or merchandising strategy.
Thus, the benefits of international registration and protection of one’s trademark clearly outweigh the costs of such registration.