If you want to expand your business beyond your home country’s borders, you need to protect the distinctive mark of your product, company or service in your new territory. At present, the protection of international trademark instruments has become essential. One of these tools is the Madrid System. This allows you to register your trademark in different countries. This modality allows brands to be protected against unauthorized use by third parties.
The Madrid System is a trademark representation and administration mechanism for obtaining international registrations. This treaty is administered by the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) and is governed by two treaties, the
Madrid Convention and the Madrid Protocol. The countries and intergovernmental organizations that are members of them correspond to the Madrid League. Once the creator of a trademark goes through the International trademark registration process, its invention is protected and protected, so the creator can prevent someone else from using their idea as their own or a third party wanting to register the trademark. You can rest assured without worrying about what you think. A name that already exists.
Benefits of International Trademark Protection
One of the benefits of the Madrid System is that it gives the opportunity of protecting a trademark in many countries around the world, among which the owner is able to select the ones that suit; for this, just need to present a written request in only one language and the payment receipt of a single rate. If we compare this procedure with the choice of doing one request for each country individually, we can notice that the protection of international trademarks through the Madrid System has an advantage in terms of the number of procedures, complexity, time and money invested. Likewise, if you need to make any modification after the registration, like the holder’s name or address, it can be done through one single procedure.
The protection of international trademarks through the Madrid System, covers a wide geographical area, since it allows to protect your distinct sign in the 113 territories of its 97 members, which represents more than an 80% of the world trade, among which are:
The African Intellectual Property Organization (AIPO), the Europe Union (EU), and most of the developed countries and developing countries.
Another positive aspect of the system of protection of international trademarks is that makes the renovation process easier because you have to ensure only one deadline, instead of having one for each selected country; so that, once the procedure is done, the protection of international trademarks will apply to all the chosen countries. If your business expands to other countries that are part of the Madrid Union, you can always include them through a renewal application, thus protecting your brand as your business grows.
Procedures for Protecting International Trademark Registration
- If you need to make a worldwide request, you want to make the preceding registration of your emblem, or as a minimum make a request to do it to your highbrow assets workplace of foundation or your country. In the case of Colombia, it should be processed withinside the Superintendencia de Industria y Comercio (SIC). After gratifying this requirement, you may make the request of the safety of worldwide logos thru the identical highbrow assets workplace, so that it will be in price of doing all of your certification and of its next cargo to the WIPO.
- The WIPO makes an evaluation of the worldwide request; after it’s miles are approved, the emblem is registered withinside the worldwide registration and published with the aid of using the WIPO Gazette of International Marks. Then, the WIPO sends certificates of worldwide registration to the applicant and could speak this occasion to the highbrow assets workplaces of all of the concerned nations.
- The highbrow assets workplaces placed in every one of the nations wherein you require your trademark safety, will make the corresponding evaluation as though it have been a country-wide registration software taking into consideration its laws; this could take among 12 and 18 months. Later, the WIPO will settle the selections made withinside the International Registry and could speak you what they decided when it comes to your case.
Read More:-
- Foreign Trademark Registration Choices
- Trademark Classes: A Guide on Trademark Classification
- How Does a Trademark Assignment Work?