As the leader in your industry, you need to ensure that you are unstoppable in any way. On the one hand, this requires certainty, that your approach to market your company or business is unique and no third party, having obtained monopoly rights in relation to a brand name, a logo, a product design or product functionality, is able to stop you from selling, either in your home country or in any other of your markets globally. This confidence can be obtained immediately by undertaking identity and similarity searches for existing intellectual property rights in all relevant countries. The search result also gives you a good indication about the International markets in your trade and reveals the players in the game. Now that you know the status, where no respective IP right is registered for a competitor, it means you are free to go ahead and a decision is to be made, whether to enter the competition or to remain on the sideline observing. Ideally, the decision to entering the respective markets in your International destinations was made long before the search had been carried out.
On the other hand, you would you like your customers to continue asking for your goods and services and spread the word about your excellent products, whereas you at the same time are in control of competitors’ attempts to copy your success and prevent them from doing so by exploiting your ideas and hard work. This is achieved by registering intellectual property rights that protect your goodwill in form of your brand or logo, namely a trade mark, or by registering intellectual property rights that product your unique product shape or appearance, such as registered designs or the way, your product solves a particular technical problem, so it can be protected by a patent. One has to bear in mind, that time is of the essence, once IP searches have been conducted, as the “first come first served” principle applies in intellectual property matters.
Now that it is clear what your markets are and what can be monopolised for you (name, logo, product design, invention) the question arises, how do you achieve the most solid protection in the majority of countries with the least effort, both financially and in relation to actions required in the quickest way possible. As always in life, there is no free lunch as much as a unified range of IP rights would be convenient, the reality is, that every country has its own intellectual property laws in place. However, there are various International Treaties for the respective IP rights, that make International protection more affordable and can contribute to an effect to streamline decisions and achieve effectiveness. Knowing the systems well and knowing how to use them within the right protection strategy is key. This is where expert advice is of most value. By not knowing the right filing strategy it will eventually get you there, but most likely with three to five times more financial efforts in double or triple the amount of time, which may cost the company a fortune, that could have been saved and invested in the company’s productivity. Doing it right from the beginning is important.
When your company operates in a global market, you need to consider intellectual property protection for each country the company operates in. Should the business be in its beginnings, you would want to consider, if there is a chance that your business may operate or expand overseas.
It all starts with answers to a few simple questions. Questions and the respective answers should be put down in writing. It is important that a coherent strategy developed, is adhered to all the way through.
Do we expand Internationally and if so how quickly?
By asking if the company would generate the best returns by establishing its product in its home market Australia first or if the global markets should be approached simultaneously the fundamentals of the IP strategy will be laid. How quickly your company expands can depend on various factors. One of them is clearly if the business has the resources to successfully commercialise outside Australia? If funds are an issue, the strategy of choice is to file an IP right in Australia. This gives the applicant six months to expand this IP right to any other country be filing an application, claiming priority, based on the Australian trade mark, design or patent application. This way you literally “jump the queue” and kill to birds with one stone. You save funds for the time being and have the opportunity to obtain access to funding that allows the company to expand and your Australian filing date, that is the date when IP protection commences, is preserved for all other countries that you are going to file into within the next six months. So, wherever you go in the next half a year, you are always ahead of any other competitor.
You can use the six months time frame wisely for establishing:
· a reputation and financial support
· manufacturing and distribution networks to supply to countries abroad
· where to manufacture your products
· marketing and promotion networks to successfully exploit your products abroad
What are our key markets?
By identifying the key markets for the company’s products and services, the most cost-effective filing strategy, that achieves registrations in the fastest way possible, can be determined. Two things are important to understand. Firstly, if an IP right is available for registration, do not hesitate to file immediately. It might be unavailable tomorrow or even in a few hours. You compete against six billion other potential applicants! Secondly, at least filing an application in Australia, would give you six months time to work out a global strategy. So a national filing is of the essence to cover your company.
National IP Filings or Filings into International Treaties, such as the Madrid System of World Intellectual Property Organisation (WIPO)
You can benefit from International Treaties, such as the Madrid Union, which consists of the Madrid Agreement and the Madrid Protocol for trade marks when all or designated countries for an IP filing are members of this Treaty. This streamlines the registration process, saves processing time and make the registration process more cost-effective. It has currently 100 members, covering 116 countries.
Part of your filing strategies might be countries in the Middle East or South East Asia, that are not a member to this Treaty, which means, your company will have to select a combined filing strategy, where the majority of designated countries can be covered by the Madrid Union and its International Treaty and the remaining countries are to be lodged individually with the respective Intellectual Property Office in each of the remaining countries.
If you run a successfully established company, it can improve performance, if the performance of your IP portfolio and the disbursements accompanied by the registrations in the various countries are carefully examined.
There is no such a thing as ONE “world trade mark” or any other intellectual property right , that covers you globally with simply ONE application. However, our team from ONE IP INTERNATIONAL can make it feel like that for you. Rather than dealing with various law firms around the globe, we are your first and only address for all global intellectual property matters.
Expert advice saves you time and money and will give you peace of mind that your Intellectual Property (trade mark, registered design, copyright, trade secrets etc.) is well protected, globally. You let us know, what is to achieve. ONE IP International a global provider of Intellectual Property services that:
• protects any IP right in any country worldwide
• breaks down any IP matter, so you understand it within minutes
• gives you immediate and 24/7 access to all your IP assets
• provides all useful tools to properly plan, create and administrate your IP portfolio
• in any language
• with all relevant information, required to make informed global business decisions.
Speak to one of our IP experts in Australia to obtain your company’s global intellectual property strategy and accomplish global protection by local access.
