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I have just build a web app called XYZ (the actual name is different).

It is going quite well. I am getting quite a lot of users worldwide.

I was getting worried I should register the name as a trademark as it may become my business.

Does it make sense to you?

And if it does, in which countries should I register it? As it is usable worldwide, to protect myself, I should register it in almost any country...but how much would that cost? Thousands of dollars. I can't afford that.

If I register it only in USA and UK (for example), somebody could register it in Germany (for example) later on and I could be forced to change the name of the webapp for the users from Germany.

It sounds very tricky :-(

Any idea, please?

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This is a Q & A site for users of web applications, not the creators of said sites. You could try asking on Pro Webmasters, but I fear it would get closed there too. – ChrisF Jul 18 '10 at 22:40
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While I'm interested in the topic, it doesn't belong on this site. It would fit better on the Software Law Area 51 proposal. – Senseful Jul 18 '10 at 22:41
I think this is a great question, but as others have said it sadly doesn't fit here. When you do repost it in an appropriate site, please report back so I can check it out! – tobeannounced Jul 19 '10 at 7:21

migrated from webapps.stackexchange.com Feb 3 '11 at 18:29

2 Answers

up vote 1 down vote

Not an expert in this subject but I have some experience in this matter, having a business background and having recently started dealing with this issue myself (TMing our logo etc.)

You do not need to register in every country. If you TM here in the U.S. thats enough. The law will state something to the effect that it cannot be copied anywhere else (in the world). Hence the issue of piracy and intellectual property theft in some countries of U.S. IP.

Having said that it won't make the process "cheap". You'll still shell out thousands of dollars for this process just to TM in one country.

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up vote 0 down vote

I'm no lawyer and therefore this isn't legal advice.

It's possible to register an EU trademark that protects you in all EU countries and you don't have the UK/Germany problem.

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