Protect the Brand Before You Enter

Trademark and IP sequencing for international franchising: filing regimes, market tiering, squatting routes, Madrid vs national filings, MFA IP clauses.

What's inside

1. 1The gate that comes before choosing a market11 min

   Most international franchise plans are built in this order: decide the model works, pick a region, pick a country, find a partner, negotiate the deal, sign. Intellectual property appears near the end, as a set of clauses…

2. 2First-to-file vs first-to-use: the rule that sets your order12 min

   Two different logics govern who owns a trademark, and which logic applies decides whether "we have been using this name for twelve years" is an argument or merely a fact.

3. 3How squatting actually happens to franchise brands12 min

   Squatting is usually imagined as an anonymous speculator scanning foreign registries. That happens, but it is not the route that most often catches franchise brands. Three of the four routes below involve someone you hav…

4. 4Madrid route or national filings: choosing per market12 min

   An administrative route, run by WIPO, for filing one international application through your home office and designating multiple member territories in it. As of the 2025 data, it has 116 contracting parties covering 132…

5. 5Beyond the wordmark: the full franchise IP inventory13 min

   A franchise is not a name. It is a name plus a system, and the system contains a surprising number of separately owned things. When you license it abroad, you are warranting that you own or control all of them. Here is t…

6. 6IP in the master franchise agreement + Capstone12 min

   Course 12 in this Academy covers the eighteen most dangerous MFA clauses across the whole agreement. This lesson goes deep on one theme only: the ten positions that keep the brand yours. Give these to your lawyer as inst…