A Community Trade Mark (CTM) may be applied for to cover all 27 countries in the European Union under a single registration. A Benelux Trade Mark can also be registered to cover Belgium, the Netherlands and Luxembourg in a single registration.
Additionally, there is supra-national system available of International Registration via the World Intellectual Property Organisation (WIPO) under the so-called ‘Madrid’ system.
Under this system, persons or firms in the UK may apply for either a UK or CTM registration and then use this as the basis for an application for International Registration, designating those territories within the Madrid system it is desired to cover, presently (81 countries) as follows:
| Albania
Antigua & Barbuda Armenia Austria Australia Azerbaijan Bahrain Belarus Belgium Bhutan Bosnia & Herzegovina Botswana Bulgaria China Croatia Cuba Cyprus Czech Republic Denmark Democratic People’s Republic of Korea |
Egypt
Estonia EU Finland France Georgia Germany Ghana Greece Hungary Iceland Iran Ireland Italy Japan Kenya Kyrgyzstan Latvia Lesotho Liechtenstein |
Liberia
Lithuania Luxembourg Macedonia (Former Yugoslav Rep.) Madagascar Moldova Monaco Morocco Mongolia Montenegro Mozambique Namibia Netherlands Norway Oman Poland Portugal Republic of Korea Romania Russian Federation |
San Marino
Sao Tome & Principe Serbia Sierra Leone Singapore Slovakia Slovenia Spain Swaziland Sweden Switzerland Syria Turkey Turkmenistan Ukraine UK USA Uzbekistan Viet Nam Zambia |
The cost of filing an application for International Registration depends on how many countries are designated.
Applications for International Registration are submitted to WIPO in Geneva via the UK Intellectual Property Office or CTM Office, depending on which has been used as the basis for International Registration, and then, after initial processing and registration, are passed to the registries of the designated countries for individual national examination.
Trade mark registration in countries which are not part of the Madrid Protocol system of International Registration has to be made purely on a national basis by applying in each of them separately.
Both the International Registration and CTM systems are substantially cheaper than registering separately in each of the individual countries they cover, but in any event to cover every county in the world (193 in total) would be very expensive.
Quotations and further information can be provided on request.
