We have recently filed a trademark or design application for you. If you are interested in extending the protection of your trademark or design to other countries, it is important to know that you have the right to invoke the priority of your existing application.

If you apply for protection for this trademark or design in other countries within six months after the first application, you can invoke the priority of your first application in this context. This means that the applications in the other countries will be assigned the same date, “the priority date” as your first application.

The great advantage of invoking priority is that you will be one step ahead of any ‘free-riders’. To give an example, imagine that you file an application for registration of your trademark or design in the European Union on 3 March 2021, and a competitor sees this and files an application for the same or similar trademark or design in the US on 25 May 2021. If you then also file an application for registration of the trademark or design in the US on 20 August 2021 and invoke the priority (3 March 2021) of your European trademark, you will still beat your competitor. You then have an older right, including in the US.

If you are interested in international protection, please provide us with a list of the relevant countries. We can then inform you about the possibilities and send you a quotation.