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The Zest

There's No Worldwide Trademark. Here Are the Three Ways to File Abroad.

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You can't register one trademark that covers the whole world. Trademark rights are granted country by country, so "international" protection really means a bundle of separate rights in the places you pick. There are three practical ways to build that bundle: file directly in each country, use a regional system like the European Union's, or use the Madrid Protocol to reach many countries through one application.

Which route fits depends on how many countries you need and whether you have a U.S. filing to build on.

Why there's no single global registration

The USPTO puts it plainly: patents and trademarks are territorial and must be filed in each country where protection is sought. A U.S. registration covers the United States. A registration in Japan covers Japan.

The treaty most countries share, the Paris Convention, builds this in. It says a mark registered in one member country is treated as independent of marks registered in the others, including the home country. So even when you use a system that bundles the paperwork, what you end up with is a set of national or regional rights, each one examined and enforced under local law.

If you're still deciding whether you need to file abroad at all, and where, I covered that question separately in Does a U.S. trademark registration protect my mark internationally? This article is about the how.

Route one: file directly in each country

The most straightforward route is to apply at the national trademark office of each country you care about. You file under that country's rules, in its language, and pay its fees. You'll often work through a local attorney or agent there.

Direct filing makes sense when you only need one or two countries, or when the country isn't part of the Madrid system. It also has one structural advantage: a direct national application stands on its own. It doesn't depend on what happens to your U.S. application, which matters for reasons I'll get to below.

The cost is that every country is its own project, with its own forms and deadlines.

Route two: one filing for a whole region

Some groups of countries run a shared trademark office. The one U.S. brands use most is the European Union Intellectual Property Office, or EUIPO. A single EU trade mark application gives you protection throughout the whole EU. The EUIPO describes it as an exclusive right in all current and future EU member states, which today means 27 countries.

The EUIPO's basic online fee is €850 for one class of goods or services, €50 for a second class, and €150 for each class after that. The registration lasts 10 years and can be renewed.

Two things to know. First, the United Kingdom isn't included. Since January 1, 2021, EU trade marks are no longer protected in the UK, so the UK is its own filing. Second, a regional filing can be reached either directly or through the Madrid Protocol, so routes two and three overlap. I went through the Canada, UK and EU choices in more detail in Selling to Canada, the UK or the EU?

Route three: the Madrid Protocol

The Madrid Protocol is a treaty system run by the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) in Geneva. It lets you file one international application, in one language, with one set of fees paid in Swiss francs, and name the member countries where you want protection. WIPO counts 117 members covering 133 countries.

To use it as a U.S. brand owner, you need a U.S. base: either a U.S. registration or a pending U.S. application for the same mark. You also need a connection to the United States, such as being a U.S. national, being domiciled here, or having a real business establishment here.

Since October 1, 2026, international applications based on U.S. filings go through WIPO's Madrid e-Filing system instead of the USPTO's own form, and the fees are paid to WIPO directly. The USPTO still has a job: it checks the international application against your U.S. filing and certifies it before WIPO takes over. The details have to match the USPTO record exactly. I wrote about that change and what it means in practice in the Madrid route and WIPO's eFiling, so I won't repeat it here.

On cost, WIPO's own fees start with a basic fee of 653 Swiss francs for a black and white mark, or 903 Swiss francs if the mark is in color. On top of that you pay for each country you name. The standard charge is 100 Swiss francs per country, plus 100 Swiss francs for each class beyond three, but some members set their own individual fee instead, and those vary. There's also a USPTO certification fee. The total depends almost entirely on which countries you pick.

After WIPO registers the mark, each country you named examines it under its own law. Each office has 12 or 18 months from WIPO's notice to grant or refuse protection. So an international registration isn't a guarantee of protection anywhere.

The catch with Madrid: five years of dependency

A Madrid registration is tied to your U.S. base for five years from the date the international registration issues. The USPTO's description is blunt: if your basic application or registration is canceled or abandoned during that period, your international registration and all of its extensions of protection are canceled too.

That's why the strength of the U.S. filing matters. If your U.S. application is refused, or narrowed, or successfully challenged by someone else in those five years, the foreign protection built on it can fall with it. For a pending U.S. application, the USPTO strongly recommends waiting to file the international application until after you've received the first office action, so you know what problems the base might have.

Direct national filings and direct EU filings don't carry this dependency. That's the tradeoff: Madrid is usually simpler to file and manage, and direct filings are more independent.

The six-month priority window

Timing matters more than most founders expect. Under the Paris Convention, once you file your first trademark application, you have six months to file in other member countries and claim your original filing date as your priority date. The same six-month window applies when you file an international application through Madrid.

In practice, that means your foreign applications can be treated as if they were filed on the same day as your U.S. application, even if someone else filed the same name abroad in the gap between. This matters most in countries that give rights to whoever files first. China is the usual example, and I covered its system in China's new trademark law.

After six months, you can still file abroad. You just get the date you actually file, with no backdating. So a common sequence for U.S. brands is to file in the U.S. first, then decide on foreign filings inside that six-month window.

If you'd like to talk through where your own brand is headed, you can see how the search and filing packages work on the services page, and the FAQs page answers most of what comes up before a first call.

Book a free 15-minute discovery call with the attorney (opens in a new tab)

(No legal advice is given on the discovery call. It's a chance to tell me what you're building and hear how the process works.)

Sources

This article is general information, not legal advice. Reading it does not create an attorney-client relationship.

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