When is a good time to register Trade Marks overseas?

When is the right time to consider getting an overseas Trade Mark?

Talking today about overseas trade marks for Australian businesses.

But if you’ve come up with something very unique and new and you want to go in to a certain market,

could be Singapore, could be New Zealand, could be USA, UK, Europe etc.

you have to seek protection in the jurisdiction in which you wish to operate.

Unfortunately there’s no such thing as a global trade mark, for good reason.

You can kind of think, if someone is in the UK and using your business name and not competing with you,

then they shouldn’t be allowed to stop you from trading in Australia and vice versa.

Otherwise we’d have no more names left and everyone would be trading on everyone’s toes.

So the good news is you can get protection in those countries, and the best time to really do it is thinking,

when am I about to launch into this market? How much energy, effort and resources are we going to be putting into that?

Is there someone currently on the register there or trading in that country with a name that’s same or similar?

There’s a whole bunch of factors at play. And obviously, the funds.

It is quite expensive to register in different countries apart from New Zealand, as I’ve mentioned in another video.

But ordinarily, and it just depends whether we go through the World Intellectual Property Organization, WIPO, which is based in Geneva.

And unfortunately the fees are in Swiss francs so it’s quite expensive to register,

if you’re registering in a number of different jurisdictions.

Often we find just doing them one by one and using a representative in each of those jurisdictions,

and we’ve got contacts around the world now in each of those jurisdictions to help you get the best protection,

at least do that in an affordable way, or most affordable.

And then it’s just a matter of time when you’re prepared to do it from a financial perspective.

I hope that helps today. If you’ve got any questions, feel free to call me or email or send an inquiry through on the website.

Contact us today if you require any assistance with handling your trade marks.

(c) Progressive Legal Pty Ltd – All legal rights reserved (2019)

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