I'm waiting for an investment and prefer to pay for a trademark after getting the money. What would be the best way to protect my brand?

If your financial funds are limited, you can always consider filing a trademark application in one of the countries of your interest. This would preferably be a country where you are based or where you have the largest customer base.

The risk that your brand might get copied is the highest in those countries where your brand is well known. For this reason, it is of crucial importance to file an application as soon as possible to prevent any copycat attempts. Once you file your trademark application, you will gain priority over anyone who files an application with an identical or a confusingly similar name.

Once you obtain your investment, you can expand the protection to more countries. You can consider filing via a law firm or a local attorney. Alternatively, you can choose to file your application via WIPO using the Madrid System. This is an effective way to obtain trademark registration in multiple countries using only one attorney and one international application.

You can also leverage the so-called priority right. If you apply in the rest of your selected countries within six months of filing the first application, you can claim the initial application's filing date for the rest of your applications. This means if your applications are successful, the protection will start counting from an earlier date, allowing you to wait for your investment and then extend your protection to other countries without losing any rights.