If you do business internationally and you want to be sure your trademark or service mark is not violated in other countries, you need to know about the Madrid Protocol. It's a way for you to register your trademark or service mark internationally, through the World Intellectual Property Organization (an agency of the United Nations). Currently over 90 percent of the countries in the world, including the U.S., are members.

The concept is that someone who obtains a trademark in a WIPO-member nation may, through a process known as "designation, have that trademark protected in all other member nations. But you will still need to defend your trademark in individual nations of violations are found in those nations. The legal battles in other countries can be very costly.

WIPO administers a database of information (ROMARIN) on internationally registered trademarks.