On February 10, 2022, the second in this year consultation session on intellectual property for exporters takes place.
The question came from a Belarusian resident of the Hi-Tech Park manufacturing computer games and software, who cooperates with a foreign company to finalize and implement them in the media space.
Belarusian programmers and designers have developed a new game and trademark for a foreign company. This company intends to file a trademark application in our country and use it to file an international application indicating a number of countries, including the country of its location. How can this be done?
The answer puzzled the participant of the consultation session.
Guiding questions made it possible to reveal that a foreign company does not have its own production or sales base on the territory of the Republic of Belarus, but has its own official office in its own country. In accordance with the Protocol to the Madrid Agreement on the International Registration of Trademarks, if a basic trademark application is filed with the national patent office of a member state of the Madrid Union by a foreign person, then the person has the right to file an international application within the Union only on condition that this foreign applicant has a valid and non-fictitious industrial or commercial enterprise in the country of the basic trademark application.
Thus, a foreign company can only file an international trademark application in its own country and apply for international trademark registration on its basis, specifying, among other countries, the Republic of Belarus.
