[pumi23]

hello,

i would like to register a trademark in a few countries.
in hong kong seems to be very easy and i got all the information already.

but how about USA and EU? i would like to register there too. a law firm made me an offer of 12,000 HK$ for a USA trademark registration.
thats really a lot.
does any of you guys have a contact you could share with me?
or can i do it by myself? i have an address in the EU too.

thanks
sandra

[mjk]

As far as I know China/Hong Kong is part of the so called "Madrid Agreement". If your trademark is succesfully registered on a national level, you can register it in x-number of member countries via the World Intellectual Property Organisation (WIPO) in Geneva. Depending on the number of countries you select and how smooth the process is, it can easily cost you up to EUR 10,000 (this number is based on a registration which included a number of member countries in Western and Eastern Europe as well as Japan & China).

For the US, as well as other non-member countries (eg in South East Asia), we were told that you will have to register on a national level, which can be very time consuming and cost you another substantial amount.

I am no lawyer and was not directly invovled in the registration process my company went through, so better treat this info carefully.

You can try to read up here: www.wipo.int/madrid/en/
(I saw they even have a fee calculator)

[KnowItAll]

Exactly what MJK says. Look around for the Madrid agreement on google.

One thing though.. the Madrid agreement applies after you have a trademark in one country. Be warned though, that the HK trademark process is pretty lengthy ...

[Inattendu]

You should try to focus on the major markets for your products. For instance, if you sell in Europe, usually protecting France, Germany and England is planty already.

As far as the US is concerned, the application is fairly simple and relatively cheap. You do have to go back and forth but within 3 to 6 month it is done for about USD $400 to $500 (Depending on the complexity of the product you are trying to trademark.

http://www.uspto.gov/go/fees/fee2007august01.htm

for more details about the overal process, you can check:

http://www.uspto.gov/main/trademarks.htm

Good luck.