Multinational Trademark Registration Systems

Trademarks are of considerable importance to industry, commerce, and consumers and have become valuable business assets. In times of growing international trade and globalization, dogmatic territoriality applied to trademark protection is tantamount to ignoring today's basic reality because trademarks are exploited at great profit across borders by global or regional marketing. Against this background, this paper analyzes the existing multinational trademark registration systems and looks into future systems. Illustrated are the system of the European Union, the Madridsystem administered by the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO), the system of the Organisation Africaine de la Propriété Intellectuelle (OAPI), and the trademark registration system of the African Region Industrial Property Organization (ARIPO).