Suppose I make an app. Suppose it becomes popular worldwide. How can I protect its name, logo, etc worldwide? Is there some international registry or smth...? For instance is there any law restricting me from creating my own app, calling it Facebook, drawing a white lowercase F in blue rectangle as its logo and releasing it to the public?

Yes, trademark and copyright law prevent you from stealing other peoples things

@Jameslikestea is it 100% worldwide? How does that work? Is it enough to just add the copyright symbol to the app, or what..? Sorry for dumb questions, haven't done that before nor have found I a straighforward answer online...

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@theKarlisK just like that? Or was it a joke? :)

As far as I know, trademarks have to be registered and paid for in each individual country. Personally I don't like it since it seems so much like "paid protection" in mafia games. But that's the status quo sadly.. personally I prefer publicly shaming whoever abuses my work, because it's so much easier and doesn't cost money 😛

Just add a GNU license to your project and you're fine

Names and most aspects of branding aren't covered by copyright law, only trademark law. Your logo might be covered under copyright law, but you would want it trademarked too. Copyright would cover you in most countries under the Berne convention, but AFAIK for trademarks, you have to file in each country separately. Many big companies have had problems trying to expand their market into other countries only to find that their business name is already trademarked by someone else.

@HollowKitty How do these companies sort it out? Pay a pile of money for the TM owner?

@netikras Yeah, or if they're big enough bullies they try to sue and hope that having bigger badder lawyers wins the day despite being in the wrong, kind of like what Nissan (car company) tried to do to Uzi Nissan (the owner of nissan.com).

@HollowKitty It looks like you know stuff :) would you also happen to know/have any handy and preferably easy-to-digest links to whatever I'd need to know before releasing my product worldwide? ©, TM, these convention-thingies, etc...? ATM I'm mostly concerned about protection of name, logo, anything else I could protect.

@netikras Honestly if you are at all serious about it, I would recommend talking to a lawyer who can help you figure out what level of protection you need (worldwide legal protection for your trademark is probably not necessary or reasonably possible).

I just always go open source (including the logo) and use a fitting license.

There is no global copyright (non-opensource) license nor trademark until the whole earth became a single country or an organization. Sadly we are not.

Elaborate? I am from Myanmar and if I want, I can easily set up Apple Co., Ltd. With same logo or Google Group of Companies or whatever the hell I want since those companies are not here yet.

Then what if other steal my name or logo or business model? Well you can do your best to register whatever licenses and rights and patents with the best best lawyers at every continent.

Or you just forget about all that crap and make your app/product/service so good till even those tribe who live in Amazon rainforest know about it.

@cursee You're confusing trademark and copyright which is really not helpful. There is an almost-global copyright system, which is the Berne Convention. Myanmar signed the Berne Convention in 1995. Copyright doesn't cover brand names, but it can cover a logo. If Apple doesn't sue you for using their logo it's because they don't actually care enough about your business in Myanmar to sue.

@cursee Ah my bad, Myanmar is only a signatory to TRIPS, making it one of like ten countries in the world that hasn't signed the Berne Convention. Still, for copyright there's a very good international system. In this map here, every country in blue has signed the Berne Convention.

TRIPS contains most of the Berne Convention rules, and it's a requirement to sign TRIPS if you want to be part of the WTO. So the Apple logo copyright still applies in Myanmar. But they likely don't own any trademarks there.

And for this map... every country in dark or light green is in the WTO and thus a signatory of TRIPS.

@netikras yes copyright is universal, however trademarking is not, it applies to an individual country and you have to pay real money for it, using the TM symbol IS however, free. Using the r in a circle is not, read up about registered vs unregistered trademarks