A: Regardless of whether the trademarks are registered in your own country or not, if you wish to register the trademark overseas, consider international applications through the Madrid Protocol. Consider it the Madrid Protocol is a treaty that allows the trademark registration in various countries to proceed quickly and smoothly with only one international application for the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO). As of April 2019, 104 countries, including the Philippines, are members of the Madrid Protocol.

If you wish to register a trademark in the Philippines, designate the Philippines as an international application via the Madrid Protocol. Upon receiving notice from WIPO, the Intellectual Property Office of the Philippines (IPOPHL) will conduct a substantive examination of the trademark in the same way as a domestic trademark application. Then, if there is no reason for refusal, they will send a letter to WIPO stating that the trademark has been protected in the Philippines. The document giving the protection has the same effect as the registration certificate.

Another advantage of the international registration is that the renewal procedure can be performed collectively at WIPO, and there is no complicated procedure for each country.